While I was just about to fall asleep last night I decided to go back to YouTube and watch one of my big addictions recently which is Bizarre Food’s with Andrew Zimmerns through YouTube.
For one of his episodes, he travels to Chengdu, Sichuan, which is one of the provinces of Mainland China to try out their local outrageous strange food. To help assist him to show him the local strange eats in Chengdu, Andrew got a food tour guide named Tiger (real name is Chen Kai Rong aka Tiger Chen) who has worked with some big Hollywood stars in teaching them Kung Fu fighting moves for their movie parts.
What I felt is worth putting on the website was that around the 10:30 mark of the video we find out that this local Martial Arts expert Tiger has a training buddy and childhood friend who Andrew decided to shorten and nicknamed Dogger (might have spelled that name wrong) whose real name is spelled out something like Jiang/Jang Bao Chung/Chun (in some permutation of those sounding ways). Andrew goes to note in the video that Dogger (which I will call him since this is an easier name) is a childhood friend and personally trains with Tiger.
Around the 10:40 mark he goes to proclaim “That is a big hand!” while comparing his hands to this HUGE guy who he nicknamed Dogger. He goes to say that this big guy is at 7 feet tall and over 330 lbs.
This next picture is taken at 12:25.
Around the 13:07-13;09 time range, you can hear the guy speak and his voice is exceptionally low in tone and does sound somewhat like Hong Man Choi, the Korean K-1 MMA fighter who stands at 7′ 2″ who got his height from Gigantism. This is one indication that he might have the pituitary condition.
When you listen to the voice of genetic giants, like Pau Gasol, Shaq, and Kavin Garnett, all around the 7 feet mark, their voices are deep but not that deep. If you listen to pituitary giants talk like Hong Man Choi talk like HERE you can hear that their voice has a strange echo that is strangely deep. This could be an indication that the voice cords and trachea in their neck has also been widen and enlarged from the growth hormone release in childhood.
Around the 18:50-19:00 time range, you see the amazing sitting height difference between Andrew and the Chinese Giant and their sitting height would have a clear 12 inches of difference already.
I tried to find out what is the real height of Andrew Zimmerns but that was something that was hard to come by. One resource did say 5′ 10″ and given the fact that Zimmers looks like an Average sized American overweight caucasian male, I would be willing to say that he is probably around the 5’10” make, give or take 2 inches on both directions.
In other episodes like the one Zimmerns was in Iceland, I would actually estimate his height being taller, probably around the 6′ 0″ mark. We know that Iceland has been ethnically very homogenous, like North Korea, with very few outsiders or immigrants. The country is very pure in blood and their average national height is high, around 182 cms around 6 feet tall. When Zimmerns was taken by a family to go puffin hunting, you can see that he is around 2-3 inches shorter than the oldest guy, the father, who I would guess is around the 190 cms or 6′ 3″ in height mark. The younger males who are the sons are even taller, probably around the 6′ 3″-6’4″ mark. Icelandic people could be classified as Northern European, who have been traditionally taller than many other groups.
It is hard to determine whether this unkown chinese 7 feet tall giant is really cutting the 7 feet thresh hold. His head is clearly at least 2-3 inches past the doorways but I would note that during my own trips to China many of the doorways are not the 6′ 8″ tall doorways you see in the US. A clear example to show how the height of doorways show variation between different countries is to note that in my recent trip to Japan, specifically Fukuoka. While deciding to sleep at a local hostel I was astounded by the fact that the doorways were around the 6’0″-6’1″ mark in height and everytime I walked past the doorway I was almost positive I was going to hit the doorway upper edge. I was amazed that doorways in such a developed modern country would be this short, because I would believe they would want to make it bigger to accomodate for the people who are taller than average. Maybe his height is closer to 6′ 10″ and not the 7 feet tall as advertised but still in a country like China where the average height of adult males is probably around the 5′ 8″ mark, his height is extremely abnormal.
From a quick study of his face, it is hard to see any really pronounced facial features on this Chinese giant unlike other giants who have suffered from gigantism. To the left is a picture of Richard Kiel, the giant who played Jaws in the James Bond 007 movies. This is a very formal picture and you can see that there is little that would tell you he suffers from acromegaly. It is only when you see these pituitary giants in real life do you realize that they are unique. His nose, jawline line, and eyebrow ridge seem to be rather average and in proportion to his head.
Let’s remember who has been a rather big celebrity in the US public who also suffered through gigantism and has acromegalic features, Anthony Robbins. I;ve probably mentioned Robbins half a dozen times throughout this website drawing either his unique height and growth process and his teachings and work.
From a clip on YouTube I saw Piers Morgan (or Charlie Rose) talk with Anthony Robbins Robbins says taht around the 14-15 year range, he was about 5’2″-5″3″. In less than 3 years he would hit his adult age of 6′ 7″, which would be a 16-17 inche increase in 3 years or less. He found out that he had the pituitary gland tumor in his 30s and chose not to go through with the tumor removal surgery and later X-rays showed that the tumor either stopped pressing along his pituitary gland or went away (I don’t remember the exact story).
As for this unknown Chinese 7 feet tall giant, When we study his facial structures to look for the traditional features that indicate a lifetime of pituitary gland release excess causing eventually acromegaly in adulthood after growth plate closure, I actually don’t seem to see any symptoms. His face is not that angular or pronounced however we have to remember that this Chinese giant is probably still in his 20s. Andrew does say that he trains in martial arts with Tiger so he is still very capable in body and healthy. Then again, if we saw pictures of Sandy Allen who was another pituitary tumor giant at 7′ 7″ in her 20s and 30s, it would show that she was also very mobile and healthy. It wasn’t until later in life that her body caused her to be confined first to a cane, then a walker, and finally to a wheelchair. The same could have been said about Yao Defen.
In addition, we have to remember that due to traditional chinese lifestyles, their emphasize on food and not much exercise cause their face to be more smoother, and puffier than from eating eastern food. Dogger’s face is not that angular, but rather normal from certain angle. At this point, I would guess that Dogger probably did have a pituitary tumor issue when he was younger but the tumor is most likely benign (actually, most pituitary tumors which cause gigantism are benign in nature, and only a few are malignant like and continue to grow in size, like the case with Tanya Angus) and shrank. I don’t think he suffers from acromegaly, but he should still be careful and check with an endocrinologist and get his brain X-rayed.