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Is Plastic Surgery The Key To Happiness? In South Korea, That Might JustBe The Case.25th June 2014

Chez426 points • 47 posts

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Warning: contains shocking images.more info #

What did your family get you for a graduation gift? A watch, a holiday, a car?

How about a whole new face?

In South Korea, well-meaning parents are offering their daughters plastic surgery as a

reward for finishing school or university. It has been calculated that 1–in–5 Korean

women have undergone some form of surgery, and the figure is rising.

Predominantly, the surgical procedures are geared towards achieving a Western-inspired

standard of beauty, with nose and eye alterations proving the most popular. This look is

promoted by East Asian pop stars like Fan Bing Bing, who has been rumoured to have

$

had a number of surgical procedures. The desired look includes a pointed, ‘V’ shaped jaw,

pale skin, large eyes and a slim, defined nose.

Is this trend for plastic surgery a cause for concern, orsimply an aesthetic movement like any other?

On the one hand, it is true that standards of beauty vary across the world, and are all-too-

often based on a pursuit of hard-to-achieve perfection (pale-skinned Brits, for instance,

favour a sun-kissed look). However, the gaping disparity between the coveted aesthetic

and the natural look of most South Korean women suggests that the promotion of such a

drastically inaccessible standard of beauty is a dangerous force indeed.

Rather than enhancing their natural beauty, some women go so far as to pick out a

particular celebrity whom they hope to emulate through a series of cosmetic treatments.

Such transformations are often so extreme that passport officials have complained

recently of being unable to identify flyers by their pre-surgery photos, causing the need

for a ‘surgery certificate’ to accompany travel documentation.

Whilst the choice to undergo cosmetic surgery should be a personal one, the

normalisation of surgery within South Korean society may have a worrying effect on

the younger generation. Girls as young as seven are being advised to ‘get their nose fixed’,

whilst older girls might feel pressured to compete with friends who have already

undergone surgery.

As an impressionable school girl, it is hard to accept your own natural appearance

when constantly exposed to a conception of beauty that relies on the opposite: the

unnatural, surgically-enhanced look that South Korean society reveres. Surgery may be a

rewarding life decision for many people, but there is a question of whether these young

women grow up in the right environment to be qualified to make these decisions

for themselves.

Nor is this merely an aesthetic issue alone. Universities and employers in South Korea

request a photograph on application or resumes, a system which puts pressure on

young women to look good simply to make their profile from stand out for the crowd. As

a consequence, the demand to be attractive influences the academic and professional

spheres much more so than it would do elsewhere in the world.

There are substantial dangers associated with going to such lengths to change your

appearance. A risky procedure known as double-jaw surgery has gained

increasing popularity amongst Korean girls who wish to achieve small, narrow faces. Over

half of these procedures result in some level of complications, ranging from temporary

numbness to facial paralysis. In one severe case, a 23-year-old girls committed suicide

after the surgery left her unable to chew or stop crying.

This photo compilation, above, from the recent Miss Korea contest shows how

homogenous the standard of beauty has become. The inherent tragedy of this is that

beauty, since the beginning of time, has thrived upon variety, rather than one mould that

people feel compelled to conform to. The photo below demonstrates how, across the

world, beauty is a diverse and ubiquitous concept.

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It is worth remembering that beauty is not only skin-deep, and invasive procedures are

often not the answer when trying to achieve elusive ‘inner beauty’ and long-lasting

happiness. Having said this, young, vulnerable South Korean girls cannot be held solely to

blame for this trend in plastic surgery. It is South Korean society as a whole that needs to

make these women feel valued in their own skin, not pressured to undergo plastic

surgery before they feel ready to make such big decisions for themselves.

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