Asian American Attitudes toward Height | Asian American Poll

AA ATTITUDE TOWARD HEIGHT
(Updated Saturday, Jun 6, 2026, 12:07:54 AM to reflect the 100 most recent valid responses.)

Assuming you are an Asian American, how important is height in your assessment of a person's attractiveness?
It's a key element of attractiveness. | 20%
It's one of many factors I consider. | 44%
It's less important than other personal qualities. | 28%
I am not attracted to tall people. | 8%

Assuming you are an Asian American, which best matches your feelings toward your own height?
I'd like to be 3 inches taller. | 43%
I'd like to be an inch taller. | 27%
I'm happy with my height. | 26%
I'd like to be an inch shorter. | 4%

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Angelique,

I can speak both Chinese and Japanese. My Chinese is better, but neither is really very good. My Chinese is probably average for ABCs, and my Japanese is above average for Nikkei (although, that is not really saying much these days). But english is really the only language I can truly express myself if.

I get the feeling your Chinese is pretty good. Chinese school or home taught?

Man of Lha-sa(mancha) Wednesday, April 03, 2002 at 06:53:35 (PST)

B.Lee,
what initially made me read this board in particular was the "eugenics" idea you think china is supposedly epousing. "eugenics" typically entail "selective breeding" of traits that are genotypic in nature -- which is largely flawed thinking becaue people have lots of environment influences.

PHENOTYPE, eg. height, however has no bearing with "eugenics." if you look at any population, there're always bound to be tall and short people. what you're mentioning about tall chinese basketball players has more to do with recent improved relationships and exchange of ideas and people with the two countries. don't forget only 30 years ago nixon went to china. so you'd not heard of tall chinese back then because there was nothing to be found on this topic.

also, if you look at the developed world for the increase in height trend, it has to do more with better nutrition than anything else. if you go to the smithsonian or some european museums, the armors and suits of people only 200 years ago on average men were only 5'4" what accounts for the recent increase has been nutrition and pumping the livestock full of growth hormones. in fact, if you look at asian-americans, on average you'd find we're taller than asian-asian folks because of the american diet.
anthropology student Tuesday, April 02, 2002 at 18:18:31 (PST)

Suddenly appeared? HAH, you're a fool B.Lee, a damn sino-phobic fool. From the looks of it, I'm driven to guessing that you are white for only a non-asian would resent the rise of asians, albeit physical or monetary. And only a white man would have the haphazard gumption to denounce such feats as totally unnatural and thus must be under the influence of direct artificial intervention. however, by any measure, you might as well be a Chinese or Korean man who looks down upon Chinese.

Do we have to be a bunch of dwarves? Is it a law of nature? I doubt it, from personal first hand experience. Besides, China is home to 1.28 billion people, more than all of Europe. Perhaps you're familiar with the cantonese of China, as opposed to all the other Chinese people. Understandably, you might assume Chinese could not surpass the height of 6'0, but you see, that is not the case. And on another note, there aren't "So many 7 footers" running around China, but rather a handful of not more than 20 or 30.

Did you ever stop and think that Chinese people may be entering the NBA because they have more skills than before? We've had our share of 7 footers in the past, though a player with Wang Zhizhi's skill is a first for the nation. China has been airing NBA games quite often, especially in recent years, right at the onset of the rise in Chinese basketball. The popularity of the sport has grown dramatically, and in 1994, the Chinese Basketball Association was founded. Since then, the once fledgling league has become a haven for China's best basketball talent to hone their skills, as European and Russian players have been doing for years. Today, the World is far more receptive to foreigners, even when those foreigners are Chinese from "communist red China".

You believe the only reasonable explanation for tall Chinese is eugenics? Come over here and I'll step on your narrow-minded face.
chinatown Tuesday, April 02, 2002 at 18:00:52 (PST)

chinatown,

You're not making much sense. Communism, height, windmills....

Got to calm down those demons in your head before you post next time.
AC Dropout Tuesday, April 02, 2002 at 12:17:17 (PST)

Chinatown,

I can't tell if you were truly trying to write to Angelique or were trying to direct your statements at me (I'm the one who brought up the height discrimination issue in China, and mentioned the height of the honor guard).

Certainly, the Chinese government and businesses can do whatever they want and if they survive and prosper then more power too them. I'm not certain if I agree with your proposition that being shorter than the "mean" height is an "ineptitude." I can understand height requirements for say the military or other security services, but I cannot understand a 5 foot 6 inch requirement to work at a central bank (i.e. a government institution, not a private one, hence they don't have to "look good" for foreighners, just keep the economy stable). If someone can do econometrics, I don't know why their bosses would care if they looked like a monkey and peered at kneecaps. Maybe I'm just Sinophobic that way.

The average height of a windmill in Holland is about 45 meters. Spanish ones were closer to 40 meters.
Man of Lha-sa(mancha) Tuesday, April 02, 2002 at 10:51:52 (PST)

B. Lee,

It really has nothing to do with eugenics per say.

But there is definitely a program to improve the height of the Chinese people. As a mentioned before in a past career I was deeply involve in dematology research. I happen to be given the opportunity to visit government labs in Taiwan.

Upon my visit I discovered that the Taiwan government was copying an immuniztion program used in China for diary cows. Beside FBS (Fetal Bovine Serum) they used a growth factor call BGF-11 (Bovine Growth Factor). The report stated that besides immunizing the cows, a secondary effect was that human child which consume the dairy had a growth of 4.78cm +/- .56 with a standard deviation of .01. Eventhough Taiwan was not interested in the secondary effect, it was highlighted in the document as further studies of liver breakdown of BGF-11.

Now with consumer pressure to raise cow with as little hormone augumentation. Couple with cattle industry protection from imports. USA has very little cattle subject to additional BGF-11.

The long term effects would be that Americans subsiding on local dairy and beef product will become shorter than their China/Taiwan counteparts in 1 or 2 human generations.

"The Truth is out there" ^_^.
AC Dropout Tuesday, April 02, 2002 at 10:08:58 (PST)

B. Lee,

If you look at those Chinese Olympics Basketball players, most of them are northerners. Historically, northern Chinese are tall. This fact has been known among Chinese in Asia for many years. I remember when I was attending junior high in Hong Kong (that was 18 yrs ago), there was a 13 yr old kid from Beijing in my class. He was a 6 footer already. Once again, I must stress that one should not take those articles published in the west too seriously. Sometimes, these authors knew little about Asians, how accurate could their reports be about Chinese eugenics program? They were probably just make-up stories to boost the sales of the magazines. Tall Chinese have been existing all along. China used to be a closed country to the outside world. Also, people from the South were the first Chinese immigrants to the West. They were short compared to their northern counterparts. So the westerners had this illusion that Chinese people were "midgets".
FOP (A HK Born Chinese) Tuesday, April 02, 2002 at 09:14:57 (PST)

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