I went to a Pampered Chef party today (for those of you who don’t know what Pampered Chef is, it’s like a Tupperware party but with cooking/baking utensils) where the demonstrator was teaching us how to use one of the kitchen tools to cut a pineapple. During her demonstration, she kept looking over at my friend who is roughly (I’ve never asked her official height) 5′3″ while she talked about how to cut the pineapple if you’re “vertically deprived.” She said that her mother was “vertically deprived” (yes, she used the term more than once) and used to try cutting food on a tall kitchen counter until she suggested to her mother to cut the pineapple on a chair so it was “at her level.” My friend began noticing she had become the demonstrator’s focal point of the conversation and replied with, “Hey! Stop lookin’ at ME!” in a semi-joking tone. The demonstrator continued to harp on it and say, “Well look around, honey, you’re clearly the shortest one here!”
After the party, some of the girls started talking to my friend about the demonstrator’s comments and how rude it was for her to say such things. I, too, thought it was out of line and thought she took the joke too far, but it got me thinking about comments like that and brought me back to the same point I always think about regarding my height: Why is it OK for strangers to gawk at tall people and make comments like, “How’s the weather up there?” and “Oh my God, you’re sooo HUGE!” when one or two comments to a short person in the same tone is not acceptable?
When I was younger, I used to get WAY more bothered by tall comments than I do now. Older tall people used to comfort me and tell me that “someday, you’ll grow to love hearing those comments and will embrace them.” Well, I can’t say I’ve reached the point of embracing the remarks, but I have definitely grown into my tall skin recently and don’t think about my height every time I walk into a crowded room or a public space. It’s a much better feeling than how I used to feel, when I’d slightly bend my knees or pop my hip just to shrink that liiittle bit to be more eye level with who I was talking to.
But being more comfortable in my height still doesn’t answer my question. I don’t understand why it’s socially acceptable to rip on a person’s height ONLY when he or she is tall. I don’t buy the whole, “well it’s a compliment and that person is just admiring your elegance” because, believe me, about 75 % of the comments I hear are NOT complimentary. I do, however, slightly buy into the jealousy-rooted comments because sometimes, depending on the delivery of the remark, I can physically see the envy in their eyes that I can see over anyone at a concert or that an additional five pounds of weight gain on me doesn’t appear as drastically as someone who is a foot shorter than me. So until I find the perfect answer to my question, I’m going to stick with that. Anyone have any other ideas?
Houston Rockets star Yao Ming and his wife, Ye Li, are expecting their first child in July, 
And as far as the photo of Kosen most news sources are using, it appears as if the photographer was sitting on the ground. I realize he or she was merely trying to emphasize how tall he is, but taking a photo at this angle is using horrible news judgment because it skews the perspective and makes him look much taller than he actually is. Give the guy a break!
