As title of this series suggests, our Breaking the Asian Myth stories seek to challenge absurd stereotypes about the Asian community. So far we’ve looked into the ridiculous assumption that all Asian women have the same kind of hair, the impossible belief that Asians can’t get fat, and even the dangerous theory that Asian women need not worry about breast cancer. Yeah, my eyes hurt from all the eyerolling too.
In reality, the umbrella term “Asian” is composed of many, many ethnicities so no one should assume we all have the exact same features. However, it seems no matter how many times we have to clarify that these assumptions don’t apply to all of us (No mister, I can’t explain to you what your Chinese tattoo means… seeing as I’m not even Chinese), we still have a load of overgeneralizations thrown at us on a daily basis.
One such overgeneralization that I’ve heard all my life is the idea that all Asians are short. Being a proud member of the fun-sized community myself, I admit that there are quite a number of us. But is that enough to justify the pure shock and disbelief Asians get when they actually are tall? I don’t know about that.
So here’s some love for all of you who are tired of people constantly pointing out that you’re tall for an Asian, and feel left out when you tower over the rest of us. You’re not alone! Check out some of our favorite Asian celebs who certainly break this Asian Myth.
Yao Ming — 7’6″
Dave Bautista — 6’6″
Dwayne Johnson — 6’5″
Jeremy Lin — 6’4″
Daniel Henney — 6’2″
Sung Kang — 6’1″
Kimora Lee Simmons — 6’0″
Liu Wen — 5’11”
Tao Okamoto — 5’10”
Sui He — 5’10”
Sun Fei Fei — 5’10”
Grace Park 5’9″
Deepika Padukone 5’9″
