the long and short of it

Last night, while boarding a green minibus, I had a slightly disconcerting experience. I sat down at the first empty seat... and my feet couldn't touch the ground! It was the first time during my stay in Hong Kong that the issue of height has had any impact on me personally.

For those of you who haven't met me in person: I am, by US standards, "vertically challenged". My height is several inches shorter than that of the average adult American. I am not a dwarf or a midget, but I can usually count on being 'the shortest guy (if not shortest person) in the room' in any situation in the States. No surprise then that items designed to fit 'typical Americans' are typically slightly too big for my frame. At my last job in Boston, for instance, my ergonomic office chair was a smaller version of the chairs everyone else used. The bus seats in Boston also left my legs dangling. In fact, I was so used to too-high chairs that I rarely gave the matter any thought while I lived in the US.

I rarely give the matter of too-high chairs any thought in HK. Actually, the matter of my height almost never comes up here! Certainly, I am shorter than the typical Hong Kong guy of my generation. But am I the shortest person in a typical room here? Goodness no. For instance, when I go out to dinner with my grandparents and their domestic helper, I am actually the tallest person at the table. My Western classmates are taller than me, it is true, but some of my Vietnamese classmates are not. There are plenty of other 'short' people in Hong Kong, so my height draws little notice.

The height difference between America and Hong Kong is hard to quantify or to rationalize. The statistics on average height are provided by each individual country, so Hong Kong's statistics are lumped with China's. Since the average northern Chinese is several inches taller than the average southern Chinese (HK is in the south of China), the Chinese (male) national average of 5'6.5" should be a few inches taller than Hong Kong's average male height. And while Vietnamese and Hong Kong peoples have similar body types, economic differences between the two countries should result in Vietnamese people having less-abundant diets and thus shorter heights. So Hong Kong's average male height should be taller than Vietnam's 5'4".

So what does all of this have to do with minibus seats? The height differences of succeeding generations of Hong Kongers, and the height differences between Chinese people and Westerners, are evident in public transit throughout Hong Kong. The oldest form of transit here is the tram (see pic). The height of the tramcar was set early in the last century - and was designed using the average heights of people from early last century. Even I have to watch my head when I ride the tramcars! As each new mode of transport makes its debut, the size of the seats have to fit taller and taller people. To accomodate Westerners, the newest minibuses have a couple seats taller than the rest. So when I boarded the crowded minibus last night and rushed to the only open seats, I ended up sitting in the first too-tall seats I've seen in Hong Kong.