Tuoi Tre visited Dinh Trang Village in Phu Ly Town to find out more. Your correspondents stopped at a beer shop to ask for directions to the house of the tallest people, the Ngo family, and noticed that the shop owner was not too short herself.

Ms. Ca (C) and members of her family are all over 1.75m tall

“I’m only 1.7m high. There are many people much taller than me,” she said with a grin.

At the Ngos’ house we met Ngo Thi Ca, mother of Ngo Van Kieu and Ngo Van Cong, two star volleyball players for Sanest Khanh Hoa.

The two men are also the tallest in the village at 1.96m and 1.94m.

In 2010 an average Vietnamese man was almost 1.64 meters tall while a woman was 1.53m.

We saw Ca’s grandchild Ngo Hai Anh playing with a ball in front of the house.

Ca said: “Hai Anh is 1.2m tall though he is only four. Now he is the tallest child in his kindergarten.”

She was sitting with arms around her knees, her long legs touching her ears.

“I’m only 1.75m tall. All my family members are very tall. My uncle Lam Quoc Ngoc is 1.87m; another uncle Lam Quoc Bao is 1.85m. They used to be the tallest people in the village.”

Her older brothers Ngo Van Kiem and Ngo Van Kich are more than 1.8m. But her sons Kieu and Cong are known as the “golden generation” of the family since no one else has ever topped 1.9m before.

“My husband is 1.74m tall. We were poor farmers and had simple meals like other people. However, Kieu and Cong are still very tall.”

Kieu had reached 1.7m by the time he was 15 years old. Some people suggested to Ca to let him join a football team to earn some money.

“At that time, because we had no TV, I had no idea of football. Then Kiem, my brother, visited us and took him to Nha Trang to play football,” Ca said.

However, only when he began to play volleyball could Kieu take full advantage of his height. Now he is the country’s preeminent volleyball player and captain of the Sanest Khanh Hoa and national teams.

When Tuoi Tre visited his house, he was in Indonesia to play for a club there.

Trinh Van Oanh, a young man told us: “Young men and women from my village are the tallest in the area. I’m one of the shortest… Only 1.74m.”

Vu Tranh Dau, an old man, said: “Besides the Ngo Van family, many other families have tall members.

“The Vu family has Vu Huu Phuc and Vu Xuan Huong who are about 1.83m.

“Lam Van Tiu and Lam Thi Nguyet of the Lam family are 1.83m and 1.77m tall.”

Dau mentioned the 10 girls of Lam Ha – the commune in which the village is situated --immortalized in verse for shooting down US aircraft to protect Phu Ly Bridge during the war.

“They were young, beautiful girls, all 16-18 years old. Half of them were from the Lam and Ngo families. They were very tall. Some were 1.7m, which was very rare at that time. The shortest was 1.62m.”

Ms. Ngo Thi Huyen is over 1.75m tall (Photo: Tuoi Tre)

When height is an inconvenience

Dau told us that many people in the village have to get oversized beds made.

They also have to build tall houses with tall doors.

We visited Ngo Thi Huyen whose husband is 15cm shorter than her.

She doesn’t worry much about it: “He is a kind person. We are a perfect match for each other and so got married.”

“Many villagers have told me that we look like older sister and younger brother. A friend of mine even asked me why I married such a short man,” she said.

During their wedding, the groom stood on a chair to match the bride’s height. They have two children now. Their son is 15 and 1.7m tall.

Hung, a village official, said: “We are building a volleyball court here. We can establish one or two promising volleyball teams.

“We are always the champions when the commune holds tug-of-war contests between the villages.

“Our young men are so tall, which unnerves other teams.”

Old men in the village joke that men from other villages used to avoid marrying girls from Dinh Trang village since an old Vietnamese proverb warns that tall girls just eat and sleep without doing any work.

But things have changed these days, and Dinh Trang women are “long-legged dream girls” for young men. Many Dinh Trang’s girls have married rich men from other villages

Source: Tuoitrenews