What about Chinese, Koreans, etc.?

Apart from the obvious racial stereotyping, what exactly is your point?

Asians tend to be shorter than your average American, but I seem to recall they are trending taller. Most of my Chinese friends are not much taller than I am though there are always exceptions. The same for most Vietnamese I know. I don't know many Koreans. I seem to recall an American living in Japan saying it's easier to spot fellow Americans on the commuter trains or in crowds due to height difference. Oh, I am of Japanese ancestry and am around 5' 2". I would guess my brother is 5' 6", my sister is 4' 11".

Human height

Economy affects height (and weight) and I believe the timeframe does also.

Having walked down many streets in China, Sth Korea, Japan, Hong Kong and Thailand I can safely say that there is not an enormous difference between those folk and myself ( 5'11" ).

Thai people tended to be somewhat diminutive but that seemed to be more about nutrition/economic factors as Jim says.

One thing I can remark of is that I saw few obese people in the Asian countries, or at least far less that I have come across in US and Oz.

So that they look right when you do figures of them obviously. For one thing, despite the claim that Asians all look the same, they have very different skin tones even among families, with lighter and darker skin tones...and few who look even remotely yellowish. One stereotype down the drain.

Also there is this:
http://armorama.com/review/5873
Which is why I posed the question to begin with.

I have one name for you: Yao Ming.

Sorry mate it isn't that obvious otherwise Jim wouldn't have asked.

Maybe you need to spend a bit more time phrasing your comments and questions. "The Japanese are short but what about the Chinese and Koreans" was your question but it might be better stated as "The average height of a soldier in the Japanese Military of WW2 was 62 inches so how is that reflected in the available model kits and does that compare differently to the average height of other ethnic groups of the period."

As far as skin tones go, mate have a look around you we are all variations on a theme, something which is often overlooked in figure modelling IMHO

I agree with Scott here, just clarify what info you are looking for to avoid any ruffled feathers and possible offense.
For your question, here is an example from my personal experience. One of my closest friends in high school was Chinese, his grandfather was the Treasurer for the exiled government. His father was about 5'6, his mother was 5'8 his older sister was about 5'7 his younger 5'4, he was 6'2. My lieutenant in the Army was Korean, born here in the US, we was 5'10, same height as me. So there is no one answer, their height tends to be close to your average caucasian, tending on average to be of smaller stature for those born on islands and or near small villages, due to limited availability of different sources of nutrients. With the advent of modern cities and refrigeration this problem was solved generally and this is why you see an over all increase in stature in the last 50years. Cheers.

Unfortunately it's not possible to make thread titles very long.

You're right that modellers seem to overlook various skin tones when they put a number of figures in one setting.

I'm not suggesting you make them long just think it through a bit more. For example if I was going on holiday to the great state of Illinois I'd hardly title it, "Illinois is a dump but... " ??

Hi Tom re skin tones try this site sorry its not a link but Im not sure how to do them WWW.coolmniornot/articles/1310 I found it very helpful.

Weird comparison, while to say Illinois is a dump is insulting, there's nothing wrong with being short.

The average height of the all-Japanese 442nd Regimental Combat Team and the 100th Infantry Battalion during World War II was 5'3''.

I can't find any online reference for the Japanese army in WW2.

The average height of a 19 year old Japanese male in 2006 was 5 ft 7 1⁄2 in. Source: wikipedia

Interesting thread on the subject on the axis history forum

Point is that part of Illinois is a dump but not all of Illinois is a dump therefore to make the statement that Illinois is a dump is a sweeping generalisation.

Just as saying the Japanese are short is a racial stereotype and as we've seen height relates to nationality only in as far as economic circumstances and health and well being.

It's not about short being insulting it's about stereotyping

Hello all,

This actually is an interesting discussion. Apart from modelling I'm also into reenacting, and my group are reenacting the IJA. I can take no offense from the thread as I see it as a fair query on human physical dimensions (besides, I'm as Asian as adobo). After all, we haven't seen any Wehrmacht/WSS soldier built like Arnie Kalifohnia.

We come across original issue WW2 IJA uniforms, and man they are small, even by today's small-short standards! We have uniforms that would fit modern 12-year olds, if said 12-year olds were athletic and not sedate. That's how small-statured the Japanese soldier was back in the day, even considering nutrition and health care.

Chinese once called Japan the Land of Wa, "Wa" being their word for "dwarf", so that may give an idea of how Chinese view their own stature. Chinese were also more open to consuming meat as opposed to the seafood-loving Japanese, so that adds some perspective re: height/nutrition

Historically Koreans also ate more meat, or at least their nobles did. Lower clsses made do with meat only on occasion, and usually stuck to rice, noodles, vegetable products, and fish.

There were tall Asians then, but they were more an exception. Even Americans of Asian ancestry then were more bulky than tall, given the food and environment they grew up in.

Not exactly height related but...

I was reading a while ago that the Japanese, when firing the Type 96 LMG, their version of the Bren, they had a tendency to fire high. This was attributed to the the Japanese keeping the original Czech designed non-adjustable bipod suited towards a stockier European rather than the more diminutive Asian form.

As far as this thread goes, there are always exceptions to every case. During my first tour in Vietnam, I was part of a convoy heading from the coast of South Vietnam across country to Pleiku in the central highlands. Part of our journey took us through a South Korean Army division sector of responsibility. As we approached the beginning of their AO, we were stopped for a routine check by a South Korean MP outpost. There were approximately 5-6 MP's manning the post. Those guys were all HUGE, each over 6 ft. tall, and built like block houses. I remember thinking to myself, "Murphy, watch yourself and don't piss these guys off." Sure glad they were on our side.

I went to Busan in Korea a couple of years ago on business, while I was there I took some photos of Australian and South African war graves in the UN cemetery there. Things haven't changed with the MP's as the two fellows who were manning the gate were also enormous !

Really friendly as it turned out, great blokes to talk to, but yeh I wouldn't want to get on their bad side.

If you are making a WW2 dio, I would make Asian soldiers definitely
smaller than westerners. But in modern setting, it's not necessary.

I think Asians tend to be pale, taller and blockier as they go up north.

As for Korean MPs being tall and big, it's because they draft the big kids at
the training camps.

As a visitor in Japan, I did notice that older folks did seem to fit the shorter stereotype. But not so much for the younger folks (really most under 50) on the street. My traveling companion suggested that it was all MacArthur's fault. The army of the occupation introduced cow's milk into the local diet and the increase in calcium led to taller body sizes.

Personaly, I didn't find the first post to be deminitive or stereo typing, because I read with a very open mind, not saying that others didn't. Sometimes I feel people are quick to take offence before rationalizing something out, but maybe they saw something I did not, so---Myself for instance, I am the tallest in my family but of thin build. The rest of my family is about 5'8" tall as I am 6'. They are stocky and I am thin. As I look at family photos down the generations I find a variation of builds depending on who married who and the time. During a famine, people loose weight and childeren born then have a tendincy to be of smaller stature because of a lack of nutrition, (A.M.J. & Nat Geo reading). So looking at the nutritional intake of different countries during the past 200 years, we can see a variance of growths. A people who eat a lot of red meat will apparently be of a larger stature than those who would eat more fish or white meat. It's really all genetics and diet. So lets assume that a certain group of people eat mostly high fiber nutrition vegtables and mainly fish (coastal peoples historicaly). What would the human body tend to look like? Now take a certain group of people (like my ancesters) who ate red meat and starch vegtables, what would we look like? I might suggest that a nutritionist would paint a pretty accurate picture. Now aside from the nutrition factor, As the world grows older, people are tending to live longer and thier body types are changing because of nutrition intake. I would hazzard a guess that the people of Japan eat more red meat now than 50 or 100 years ago because the world access by transport has changed it. Looking at the Japanesse solider of W.W.2, I would make an educated guess that they were of a smaller stature then now. The same world wide. And Koreans are taller and stockier too, but that is not sereo typing, just a fact of human growth world wide. Looking around our areas that we live will show you that a group of Americans are every type of build and color, tall, short, heavy, thin, blue eyes, brown eyes straight hair or curly or none and that goes without saying for all nationalities. So to answer the original guestion, in 1930's, Japans people were smaller stature than Koreans or Americans. As pointed out that the uniforms still around are smaller for the Japanesse and would hardly fit the fellow from the re-enactment groupnow. And as to the write up of the size of the MasterBox figures, Japanesse navel marines where big fellows generally, they had a tough job to do. Just like the M.P.'s I dealt with, big, big boys, which are just like most Texas rangers I've met, still have to look up to talk to them. I mean when you think about it, if you were in charge of security at an army base or foriegn town, would you want your M.P.'s smaller than the troops around that they had to controll? But to get back to the original situation, it just comes down to the genetics, locations and nutritional intakes of generations. = =

I remember reading many years ago a book by Pearl S. Buck about her having grown up in China and how she noted that Chinese were tall while Japanese were short.

As for the uniforms, they may have actually been intended for younger boys, especially if they were late war patterns. The Fine Molds (a Japanese company) figures I've seen are shorter but not smaller than Western ones.