My Books > The Great China Quest > Challenge 15: FAILED!
Challenge 15: Find a Chinese girl taller than Albert and take a picture with her.
Despite this being one of the students’ favorite challenges for us, we always expected to fail especially since, in our combined 10 years in China, neither of us have ever seen one. Girls taller than 190 cm (6′ 3″) aren’t really that easy to find in any country.
It’s widely accepted that northerners are taller than southerners. But even when we were north of the Yangtze River (the traditional dividing line between the North and South), we scanned the horizon for candidates but found none. We were constantly on the lookout for anyone who exceeded Albert’s height, but in the end only found four boys who were tall enough.
In the end, we just ran out of time because the filming of the TV show was on day 29 and we had to come back to our college from Changsha the next day. We’d been advised by a few people to seek out professional athletes (especially basketball and volleyball players), but even if we’d had a chance to do that there was no guarantee (only four of China’s national women’s basketball team are taller than Albert).
But, we did snap a backup picture along the way (see below) just in case we came up short on this challenge. Maybe the students will let us pass when they see the photo. But even if they don’t, we still beat the fortune tellers’ predictions that we’d only accomplish 9 of our 15 challenges.
Final Stats for the Trip:
- Challenges completed: 12 of 15
- Total days: 30
- Total distance traveled: over 7000 km (4350 miles)
- (As the crow flies, that’s about the distance of London to New Delhi or Anchorage to Washington DC)
- Total provinces visited: 11 (Xinjiang, Gansu, Qinghai, Shaanxi, Sichuan, Chongqing, Hubei, Anhui, Jiangxi, Hunan, Guangdong)
- Different modes of transportation after start: 12 (bicycle, boat, bus, donkey cart, motor bike, mini van, private car, semi / lorry , SUV / 4×4, taxi, tractor, train, tricycle taxi)
What Happens Next?
We’re going to spend the next months writing the book. This blog has just given brief glimpses into the stories that we’re looking forward to telling. We’ll put any updates about the book on this same blog so subscribers will automatically receive book news.
Thanks to everyone who followed our trip and especially thanks to all the generous, warm-hearted Chinese people who helped us along the way!
Photo (click to see the full image)
(To see caption, please visit the website)
4 replies on “Challenge 15: FAILED!”
Albert – You really have to go find that National Women’s Basketball Team and get a picture with those 4 girls.
It would be a nice pic in your book.
Gary
It really is too bad you weren’t in Beijing. She even fits the description of the fortune teller! It has been fun reading your updates. Can’t wait to read the actual book!
Sorry you failed but I guess it was a tall order!!! Great trip – I’ve really enjoyed reading all about it, even if I didn’t manage to post more comments than Cheney.
I think by north, they mean where the people grow and eat wheat and other grains than rice probably north of the Great Wall.
I’ve heard or read that eating grain and oats seems to have helped the northern people to be taller.
Can you find out where the wheat and oat crops begin