Recently while I was walking with my gf she told me an interesting anecdote about certain people in her extended family which seems to have the height gene which is expressed at a very high level.
While she herself if not tall, maybe even short, she seems to have some really big relatives. Repeatedly she has told me that her male cousin and his dad are of extreme height. There is also a equally tall grandmother of the cousin involved.
While there is not doubt that the standards of what is considered ‘tall’ in an Asian country would be different than in America, her claims seems to be very extreme.
The way she explains it is that her step-mother has around 5 biological siblings. She is not sure but the step-mother has around 3 sisters and 2 brothers. One of the sisters while not tall herself seems to be married to a very, VERY tall guy and the result is a very tall male step-cousin (through marriage).
Technically the relationship will be like step-cousins and step-uncles by marriage. The claim is that either the step-uncle by marriage or the step-cousin by marriage has a height that is reaching nearly as high as the ceiling.
Technically the ceilings in most buildings and places in South Korea are around 8 feet tall. She claims that these relatives have height that are only around 1 inch shorter than before scraping against the ceiling.
If we account for the shoes and a little bit of height due to hair, I would guess that she claims that these family members are around the 7′ 7″ – 7′ 9″ mark.
Apparently the cousin is so tall that he was recruited to play for some basketball team. I am not sure whether it is for a national team or not.
Based on my research, I don’t believe that her claims can be accurate. I don’t believe that there are anyone who can possibly be in the 7′ 7″ – 7′ 9″ height range in South Korea.
There is Ri Myung Hun who would be in the 7′ 9″ mark but he is in North Korea. The tallest person in South Korea should be the former Portland TrailBlazer Ha Seung Jin who is around 7′ 3″ – 7′ 4″. I told the story about the strange unknown tall korean guy I saw when I took the trip to Osaka in the post A 7 Feet Tall Korean Man Walks Through The Busan International Ferry Terminal Going To Japan
Besides these people, there are really no other contenders for anything in terms of giants found on the Korean Peninsula. What is generally well accepted about the demographics of the Korean ethnicity and the people who are from the Korean peninsula is that they are a very homogeneous group of people. There is a very low percentage of minorities and foreigners in both North Korea and South Korea. In addition, at least in South Korea people are very healthy an have a good health care system.
When we look at it that way, there should NOT be a very large long tail when looking at the bell distribution curve of the korean population. I have suspected for a long time that the reason why there seem to be a lot of Acromegalic Giants in places like China, Pakistan, and India is due to bad healthcare systems (as well as the extremely large population). The height distribution curve of these countries with below average healthcare systems will produce many more people in the long tail of the extreme height range. I note that almost everyone who has ever developed gigantism due to overactive pituitary systems and pituitary adenomas are not from the wealthy class.
South Korea should NOT be able to produce more than maybe 2-3 people over the 7′ 3″-7′ 4″ range. The reason is because the demographics of the society is extremely well documented and very uniform with the effect of minorities heights being negligeble effecting it. In the post Average Height Of Korean Men And Average Height Of Vietnamese Men the main reference I used was study done on a 1000 subject group of both college aged Korean and Vietnamese females and males. That revealed that that the average height of college aged Korean male students was around 5′ 9″.
Ha Seung Jin should be the tallest person in South Korea. Maybe he is not and there is some poor family located in the countryside of this Asian Peninsula where there is a case of acromegalic gigantism which is expressed in family members. We know that the gigantism due to pituitary adenoma can be completely genetic, due to our research on the Irish Giant Charles Byrne. However, it is extremely hard to believe that there is someone that tall that both I am not aware of or to the people at TheTallestMan.com website.
My girlfriend is claiming that one of her relatives which she has seen is supposed to be maybe 6 inches taller than Ha Seung Jin, around the 7′ 9″ – 7′ 11″ range. Can this be accurate?
Hi! I can tell you that your gf´s claims are false with a probability of 99,99%.
The chanses are very very small that her family members would have passed unnoticed if they really were that tall.
In this case a claim isnt good enough! What you need is proof!
So ask your girlfriend if you can go and visit her relatives, if that´s not possible at least ask for some photos of her family members (preferably with your gf herself in the photo). If you get any photos please ask your girlfriend for permission to upload them at thetallestman.com, there are a lot of knowledgeable people there that could help you settle the likelihood of your gf´s claims.
So she lied, lol? I seriously doubt that and even if theirs any proof what does it matter, just proves that most likely their was some genetic mutation down the line.
Actually I wouldnt necessary call the gf a liar, why?
Well, in the text it is the bf that derives the family members heights from the gf´s description that they are “about 1 inch from scraping their head against the roof” and the fact that he knows that the most ceilings are located on about 8 ft.
But what if the family members live in a house with much lower ceilings? Maybe just 7 ft?
If that is the case then the gf could very well tell the truth.
Come on man why would you even have to ask this question? You’re the one who is supposed to be the expert on human height. You answered yourself in the article.