Going to any length.........

I read this article in The OC Register, I was shocked. It seems the Chinese are having surgery to become tall. What crap I thought? people get all sorts of surgery done to look beautiful from Botox to now leg surgery….

But can they defy old age, now height as well. GOD created each person to be unique and have their own features and looks, if GOD has thought differently he would have created everyone to look alike. Each person is unique and has his/her own personality, to change the physical appearances drastically, it makes one wonder, for what people leap to such great heights to look beautiful. I don’t say it is bad, but anything in moderation is good, once it exceeds the limits, it becomes our own enemy.

A person getting a leg surgery to become tall, that is “THE LIMIT” ,has he/she thought about what will happen in the old age, I’m sure they cannot stop time.
Be thankful to GOD that you are unique!

Here is the column from The OC Register, I have put the article here since you should be member to get these columns online.

Tuesday, July 19, 2005
Chinese are going to any length to stand tall

ANH DO
ASIAN AFFAIRS
Register columnist
anhdo_2000@yahoo.com

I first heard it from my cousin who heard it from her friends. Then I saw the published reports: In China, more and more people are paying to be tall.
That's right, paying.
Cosmetic leg lengthening is a surgical procedure growing in popularity. And while the numbers are small, it's nothing less than mutilation.
Patients have been signing up because in the Asian culture, height is something to be proud of. Many believe that the taller you are, the better you look and the more likely you will find good jobs and love.
But what do these folks endure?
Basically, they allow doctors to break their legs and insert steel pins into the area from below their knees to their calves. These pins connect to a contraption that looks like a metal cage. For about six months, they wear this device, turning the screw a fraction each day to force the ends of the broken limbs to pull away from each other.
When new bone appears, the device pushes it apart again, and the result is more new bone to fill the gap. It sounds like torture, but stories abound of men and women stretching as much as 3 inches in half a year.
"I think it's disgusting," says my cousin, Audrey Pham. "For people to go through that, it's pretty sad. I would never do it if I were short."
But that's just it - she isn't.
Audrey, 20, stands 5 feet 7 inches in stockings. She favors heels, towering over Asian adults who often look up to her as she goes from department to department at the office or on campus. She's never lived in the newly competitive society that is now China, where being closer to the ground can result in being passed over.
I logged into Internet chat rooms to learn about Chinese youths - from actors to entrepreneurs - who spend nearly $6,000 to get this treatment, though it means taking a lot of time off from earning a paycheck or a university degree. They can't help themselves, they say, living in a country saturated with images of long-legged beauties, from fashion magazines to television, from villages to cities.
It's also a country where the height craze has spawned a huge market for everything from tonics to specialty exercise equipment, where the burgeoning middle classes emerge from a Maoist cultural legacy to take advantage of a boost in the economy to boost their own appearance.
Ben Lai, a businessman from Fullerton, just returned from China this week and he isn't surprised. Young men and women "see the West and they say, 'How can we be like them in education, in image and culture? What parts are we missing? What mistakes are we making?'
"Everywhere I went, they constantly asked me: 'How can I improve myself? They are children - they are looking for hope.
"And in their mind, to be tall is to be elegant," he says. "It attracts more attention."
Attention - despite the scars that these procedures can inflict, along with isolation and excruciating pain. It's considered a good investment in an environment where, for instance, should one apply for a post in the Foreign Ministry, males must be at least 5 feet 7 inches, and females must be 5 feet 3 inches. That's in contrast to the average Chinese height of nearly 5 feet 6 for men, 5 feet 2 for women.
Thus, shooting "up" is its own form of upward mobility.
I mention this to Audrey, and with the exuberance of youth, she answers: "There are other ways to get tall," citing the importance of being active, from swimming to ballet to yoga. "Exercise stretches us in many ways, if you know what I mean."
For once, I see eye to eye with someone much younger.
________________________________________
This column on Asian cultures and communities appears every other week in Local.
Please contact Do at nvdailynews@gmail.com.


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