Betrayed by Betty

Stretch my legs, Doc!

The old expression "Think I'll go stretch my legs" has taken on a new meaning in China where women are willing to submit to a painful procedure that makes them taller.

Swee Jing paid more money that most Chinese people earn in a year to have both her legs broken and stretched. The pretty college graduate is now lying in a hospital bed, clearly still in pain, after the doctors sawed through the flesh and bone of both legs in eight places. Each leg now has eight steel rods sticking out of it below the knee and these are connected to a steel cage surrounding each leg. Once the broken bones start to heal the doctors will begin to turn the screws on the cage pushing the steel rods apart and so stretching the leg. It is a slow and painful process that will take 18 months to add 8cm to Swee Jing's height. 

Kong Jing-wen is one of a growing number of perfectly healthy Chinese young men and women who are willing to have their legs broken in order to rise up the ladder in height-conscious China.

In part, the popularity of such surgery can be explained by the surge of interest in fashion and beauty in a country where things like fashion magazines and beauty contests used to be banned. The once closed society is now more open to western influences and the relatively prosperous middle classes have the money to explore cosmetic possibilities. Shops and magazines in the cities show endless images of long-legged western models, inevitably putting pressure on young women. 

There are also domestic pressures. Height is listed among the criteria required on job advertisements. Chinese diplomats are expected to be tall to match the height of their foreign counterparts. 

For more glamorous positions the conditions are even tougher: air stewardesses have to be over 5ft 5in. Height requirements are also frequently mentioned in the personal ads of newspapers and magazines. 

Even successful operations can bring pain several months after the initial operation. "During the final weeks of the stretching, I was in so much discomfort that I couldn't sleep at night," says one young woman from Beijing who gave her name as Susan. 

Now that she is 8cm taller than before, Susan says she would not hesitate to recommend the procedure to her friends. "It hurt at first and had a big impact on my life for a long time because I couldn't walk freely. But it has worked, and I feel very good about that. Before, nobody paid any attention to me because I was short, but now they'll look at me." 

vocabulary:

1. to saw - to cut with a large tool

2. flesh - skin, muscle, etc

3. rod - long, thin, solid, cylinder

4. to heal - to get better, e.g. a wound

5. to finance - provide the money for something

6. to lack - to need, to not have

7. the surge - a significant increase

8. prosperous - wealthy

9. domestic - not abroad or foreign

10. discrimination - saying one thing is better than another

11. eligible - have a right to

12. scar - mark after a wound gets better

source: http://fullspate.digitalcounterrevolution.co.uk/archive/chinalegsx.html

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/chinese-leg-stretching-operation-increases-height-1.337502