Risking limbs for height, and success, in China

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Risking limbs for height, and success, in China

Posted by Justin Long ⋅ July 25, 2008 ⋅

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Culture shock: in China, there’s such a sense of height that some people will take on a risky elective cosmetic surgery to increase theirs. “She checked herself into a hospital here and a doctor cut her shinbones
in two, applied a medieval-looking brace to her legs and taught her how
to turn its screws so that metal pins would pull her bones apart nearly
a millimeter a day, or around four-hundredths of an inch. Today, Ms.
Zhang is three and a half inches taller than she was six months ago,
though she can not yet walk.” In New York Times.