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by Benjamin Morgan

HANGZHOU, China (AFP) Shi Erxiao stands just 148 centimetres (4ft. 10in.) tall and is determined to grow 10 centimetres (4in.) within a year. And the fact she is 18 and knows her genes have run their prescribed course is not about to stop her.

Shi, from the eastern city of Hangzhou, is among thousands of Chinese people who have chosen to challenge nature with a dangerous medical procedure that risks crippling them, but promises to do what their bodies could not.

To gain the height, Shi will lay bedridden for a year as doctors stretch her surgically broken legs with a special brace resembling the modern-day equivalent of a medieval torture rack.

"If you want to get something you must pay," Shi said brightly a forthright after her surgery.

And pay she and her parents have: 20,000 yuan (2,400 dollars) for a procedure many doctors in China consider extremely risky and should only be carried out in the most extreme cases of physical deformity.

"This type of orthopaedic surgery should be used to treat people that have certain type of disease. To add several centimetres to one's hight should not be a reason for having this surgery," said Yang Qingmin, an orthopaedics expert at Ruijin Hospital in Shanghai.

Shi, a bubbly and enthusiastic young woman, has delayed her entrance to college by one year in order to have the operation. Then, taller and with her degree in hand she hopes to go overseas.

In the bed next to her lies 17-year-old Wang Yunyun, who hopes to measure 157 centimetres (almost 5ft. 2in.) by one year's end, still just shy of the average height of women in her age group.

Wang plans to study ancient Egyptian civilisation and go abroad, and those extra 10 centimetres will not only make it easier but make her more beautiful, she said.

Like thousands of Chinese women and some men born on the wrong side of average stature, Shi and Wang believe that being taller will be rewarded with a better job, higher social status and even a more desirable marriage partner.

Such beliefs are by no means unfounded in China. Many job opportunities - even outside professions that traditionally set physical requirements such as modelling or elite miliary service -are off limits to those unlucky enough to be born short.

In one recent case, a young university student was barred from sitting the employment exam for south China's Guangdong Local History office because she failed to meet the 150-centimetre (4ft. 11in.) height standard.

"The Guangdong provincial government has regulations that applicants who are too short cannot attend the examination. This girl was too short and did not meet our fundamental requirements," confirmed an official.

At the People's Bank of China in southwestern Sichuan Province, potential male employees must measure 168 centimetres (5ft. 6in.) and women 155 (5ft. 1in.).

"We used to recruit people who were short," said the bank's spokeswoman. "However, after China's entry to the World Trade Organisation, more and more foreign banks will open branches in Sichuan.

"We must build a good image, representative of Chinese, and leave foreigners with a good impression, which requires our staff not only to have good skills but to also have a proper appearance," she said.

The result is that a disproportionate number of people enduring the leg-lengthening procedure are young, physically healthy people who fear discrimination due to their height, experts say.

However many suffer little more than psychological problems, said Hao Younggiang, an orthopaedics specialist at Shanghai No. 9 Hospital. "When they imagine having the operation, they have already become addicted to the fantasy of how tall they will be after the surgery," Hao said.

"They cannot take in doctors' warnings. So doctors should really suggest they first go to and see a psychiatrist."

"The surgery most commonly involves breaking the legs in two places, one just below the knee and the other above the ankle, and inserting metal rods that attach to the tibia and the fibula.Ten-shaped outer frames hold these rods in place, while slowly, over the course of a year, screws on the outside of the brace are manually tightened, effectively stretching the bone 2-3 millimetres per week as it continuously calcifies itself. If everything goes well, the metal rods will be removed, open wounds finally allowed to heal, and Shi and Wang, if they are lucky, will stand 10 centimetres taller.

But in reality they face a variety of grave medical risks that could permanently damage their legs, potentially crippling them for life.

Problems commonly encountered are the failure of bones to reattach properly, the killing of blood vessels and nerves around the leg, as well as deformation of knee joints and the potential collapse of the ankles, Ruijin Hospital's yang explained. Hao described one devastating example.

"We met one case, a 20-something girl, who came to us after having the surgery in another hospital. The nerves on both sides of her right leg had been destroyed, and the leg was paralysed.... all for only three more centimetres," he said.

"She regretted her decision very much."

Doctor Zhang Yiyong, who performed the surgery on Shi and Wang, began conducting the procedure on people with leg deformities in 1979 and in the last two years has completed 1,500 surgeries alone.

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Copyright 2001 The Associated Newspapers of Ceylon Ltd.
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