To get a good job - break a leg and "grow" taller

[papau]

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-taller31mar31.story

Stature of Limitations in China
In a newly competitive society, being short can mean being passed over. To some people, the answer lies in a painful surgery that adds inches.
By Ching-Ching Ni
Times Staff Writer

March 31, 2005

BEIJING — She's an acting student. She sits in a wheelchair. He's a business major. He relies on crutches to get around.

Each of them willingly had a doctor break their legs and insert steel pins into the bones just below their knees and above their ankles. The pins are attached to a bulky contraption that looks like a metal cage. For six months or so, they will wear this stretching device even though it delivers excruciating pain eased only by medication.

They dial the adjustment knobs daily, forcing the ends of the broken limbs to pull away from each other even as they heal. As new bone grows, the device forces it apart again, resulting in more new bone to fill the gap. Patients on the device typically gain about 3 inches in six months. <snip>

At about $6,000, the treatment is out of reach for the average Chinese urbanite, who makes just more than $1,100 a year. But for some with money, it's a price they're willing to pay. In this increasingly competitive society, height has emerged as one of the most visible criteria for upward mobility. <snip>

<snip>These days, China is inundated with images of long-legged success stories. From fashion magazines to billboards to TV shows, young people look up to icons such as Lu Yan, an international supermodel who stands 5 feet 10, and NBA star Yao Ming, who at 7 feet 6 is trumpeted as the walking Great Wall of China.

To help produce a taller nation, Beijing has been advocating more milk consumption for school-age children. The average Chinese woman is about 5 feet 2, the average man about 5-6. Partly the result of improved nutrition and living standards, they're about 0.8 inch taller than a decade ago, making the Chinese among the fastest-growing people in the world.<snip>

"In China, the competition for jobs is too fierce," said Xia Hetao, one of a handful of physicians in the country who specializes in leg lengthening. "All else being equal, height becomes a deciding factor." Many employers list height requirements in their job descriptions. Help-wanted ads are loaded with examples. <snip>

[AllegroRondo]

1. They've been using similar techniques here

for kids with certain types of dwarfism, and to help grow bones in injured limbs.

[shoelace414]

2. GATTACA!

[On the Road]

3. Three Inches in Six Months?

Holy shit! Can you imagine your bones growing that much?

No wonder it causes excruciating pain.

[Robert Oak]

4. stupid monkeys

shows how a culture and a concept of social justice can change everything.

Let to themselves humans are stupid monkeys seemingly willing to die
to become an "alpha" monkey or whatever the nirvana is...

but actually having height as a job requirement is another example
of the lack of justice, equal rights, equality and the like
that China possesses...

which is terrifying because they are pretty much owning the US
lock stock and barrel.

[hfojvt]

5. used to be the women there would bind their feet

masochism may be a cultural thing there. Wouldn't it be cheaper and less painful to just use BGH milk?