The Chinese are stereotypically short, right? So it's really ironic that there are height requirements on all kinds of jobs, and that people will undergo surgery to increase their chances, right? Western newspapers seem to think so.

Every year or so the English-language press rediscovers a rare Chinese operation to increase height. The L.A. Times, in its March 31 issue, is the latest to run what has become a cliched story. Comparing it to a New York Times article from May 2002, we find:

- Bad pun for a title: check
- A pretty, college-educated 20-something woman goes under the knife: check
- Comments from Dr. Xia Hetao: check
- Foreign Ministry has height requirements: check
- Warnings from western doctors: check
- Reference to how short Deng Xiaoping was: check

Then there's the Guardian from 2003, with "A Tall Order," and Time Asia from back in 2001, with "High Hopes," whose stories are basically the same. Sure, human interest is a nice break from "Tall Buildings!!"-type stories, but, you know, I bet there's other interesting human stuff around, too.

Links: LATimes story, NYTimes story repost, Guardian story, Time Asia story
Dr. Xia's Beijing Institute of External Skeletal Fixation Technology has an English site which shows before and after pictures (under "Cases")