Metric vs. Imperial, Japanese House vs. American Head

With all the logical, scientific arguments for going metric, the fact remains that it is an aesthetically barren method of measurement. One hundred and eighty-five centimeters just doesn’t have the same ring as 6’1”. It sounds impressive, but you’re not quite that two meter mark, which, if you were, would then put you in that class of freaks known as the NBA. 6’1”, on the other hand, sounds like you had just the right measure of DNA and nutrition to put you over the national average height of every country and region in the world with the exception of the Dinaric Alps, home of Yugoslavian resistance fighters since Roman times.

When I first walked on basketball courts in Chiayi, the Taiwanese players would express a sham awe by saying, “Oooo, NBA!” With a national average height of barely 5’ 6” at the time, it was easy to impress them. However, once I got in a game, they soon realized that this white man couldn’t jump. Twenty-eight years later, thanks to improved diets, I am often not the tallest guy on the court. Since I’m still heavier and wider than these young upstarts, I can still box them out for rebounds, though I’ve had to rely on my hook shot more and more to get my bulk between the ball and the defender.

The main disadvantage to my height was with the house I lived in for seventeen years after marrying. It was a government-owned house provided to my father-in-law, a retired civil servant. There were two parts to it, with the back half (three bedrooms, kitchen, bathroom, dining room) being constructed in the early ‘50’s, while the front was a pre-World War II traditional Japanese-style building, one floor, built on foot-high stilts, with two large tatami, or reed mat, rooms. A six-foot wide walkway ran parallel to these rooms, which were bordered with shoji, sliding doors made of a wooden lattice with a paper covering.

The frames along which these shoji glided were built from hinoki, or the wood of the Taiwanese cypress, a hardwood desired for its straight grain and ability to resist rotting. Hardwood is the apt label, since at five-foot eleven, my head came in contact with these doorways so often that I literally had dents in my scalp. It wasn’t until after a decade or so that I finally learned to placate the house gods and mastered a supplicant’s gait in which I bowed my head while shuffling from room to room.

The bathtub posed another problem. Half my body would have to remain above the waterline, with me either sitting upright to soak my sore legs after an afternoon of b-ball or by having my feet resting on the opposite wall straddling the faucet so that I could lie in the water to ease my back. One of my few requests for our new house was an American-size tub, in which I can now stretch out.

Obviously, clothing was a problem. Seamstresses were required to make the narrowest of hems on pants’ legs because there wasn’t much extra cloth available. Though the neck of dress shirts would be fine, the sleeves were almost always too short. Buying size 11 shoes was a task, though the selection has improved over the years.

A few times a month, I jog on a series of trails near a local reservoir. Many Taiwanese arrive there as early as dawn, thus rustling out any kind of wildlife that may be on the paths when I get there, usually around 9 or 10. Unfortunately, since these trekkers are under 5’8” (170cm), I usually end up pulling a cobweb or two off my face that stretch across the trail. And even though I feel bad about altering nature, I sometimes need to snap back a twig or a bamboo branch that is at eye height, but gives no one else a problem.

Of course, there are advantages to being tall. I can place both feet firmly on the ground when stopped at a traffic light and not perform a balancing act on tiptoes like most Taiwanese women on scooters too big for them. Looking over everyone’s head in a crowded department store to see the signs for the elevator or restroom is another one. I enjoy driving my car with the windows down, my elbow resting comfortably on the door and tapping the roof along with ZZ Top or the Stones blasting from the radio. Meanwhile, Taiwanese drivers whose heads are barely visible above the door seem to be raising their hand to answer a question when trying to do the same.

Perhaps the best experience where height played a key factor was at the fireworks festival at Yanshui, where they shoot thousands of bottle rockets from “beehive” platforms. As the crowd gathered in anticipation for the lighting, my son, two friends and I stood in the middle, at least a head taller than anyone around us. When the fireworks were launched, at least a half dozen hit the face-shield of my helmet and more my shoulders, a truly intense adventure that we repeated at different locations in the town that night.

However, the best part about being tall is that my wife, at an even 5’ (150cm), always has to look up at me. Now, if only I could get her look up to me.