A Chinese blogger on Toutiao.com has dug up five rare photographs showing very tall Chinese men of the late Qing Dynasty. The vintage photos of these men, who stood well over two meters (six and a half feet) at a time when malnutrition frequently stunted growth, were taken in an age when China was just starting to be explored by Westerners.
Zhan Shicai, born in 1841, is perhaps the most famous of the imperial Chinese giants. According to a report by a Chinese-Australian historical society, he was native of eastern China’s Fujian Province and had a claimed height of 2.44 meters, or about 8 feet, making him one of the world’s tallest men. Zhan moved to London in 1865, and performed onstage in the West as “Chang the Chinese Giant.” He received a Western education and learned ten different languages.
