Society’s
ugly obsession with beauty is nothing new. Ever since the Ancient Greeks,
humans have overvalued aesthetic appeal. Today, the media’s oversaturation of
bodily ideals and the glamorising of celebrity culture is fuelling a worldwide
beauty addiction.
In one
country, the pursuit of perfection has reached new heights. Full-length mirrors
are installed in almost every public place, walls are plastered with plastic
surgery ads and bandage-wrapped patients, fresh from going under the knife,
unashamedly go about their daily business.
Welcome to South Korea, the plastic
surgery capital of the world.
South Korea’s obsession with cosmetic surgery
Cosmetic
surgery is a billion dollar industry in South Korea. It is estimated that one
in five South Korean women have had some form of cosmetic enhancement, compared
to about one in 20 American women. Korean men are also fixated with beauty –
around 15% of plastic surgery patients are males.The capital, Seoul, has become
a medical tourism mecca with more than 4,000 clinics performing nips and tucks
on around 650,000 patients each year. In a single mile of Seoul’s opulent
Gangnam neighborhood, nicknamed the “Improvement Quarter”, there are 500
aesthetic centres dedicated to performing plastic surgery procedures.
Medical
tourism has been steadily growing since 2007 when the Korean government lifted
visa requirements that restricted extended medical stays. By 2020, the number
of medical tourists is expected to surpass 1 million, injecting an estimated
$3.2 billion into the South Korean economy.
South
Korea has the highest rate of plastic surgery per capita in the world. Its
natives consider physiognomy, a person’s literal face value, to be a
life-defining factor and are willing to spend heavily in order to perfect theirs.
But why are Koreans so obsessed with beauty and what are the consequences of
this superficiality?
South Koreans equate beauty with success
Half of
South Korea’s population lives in Seoul, the 6th most densely populated city on
earth. This has generated a hypercompetitive culture where people are routinely
confronted with each other’s appearances and thousands of applicants challenge
one another for a single job. As a result, Koreans often equate beauty with
success, using their appearance to distinguish themselves.
According
to leading plastic surgeon Dr. Hang-Seok Choi, it's widely accepted that
attractive people have an advantage in the job market. Many businesses
genuinely consider a candidate’s beauty before hiring them and make it
obligatory for jobseekers to attach a photograph to their application - a
practice that is not as widespread in the UK or the US.
Students
in Seoul often receive a new nose or eyelid surgery as a graduation gift from
parents, a gesture designed to give a significant boost in the corporate world.
South Korea has the lowest rate of employment for female college graduates
among OECD nations, so it perhaps isn’t surprising that a huge number are
willing to undergo cosmetic surgery to ensure they land a job.
According
to studies conducted at Huazhong University in China, South Korean females can
earn up to 2% more for every centimetre of height. Because of this, so-called
“survival surgeries” are growing in popularity, such as cosmetic limb
lengthening which can give patients a few inches of extra height.
K-Pop is fuelling the fixation with plastic
surgery
For many
years the male-dominated Korean media has endlessly reinforced the appeal of
Caucasian appearance, equating the Western aesthetic with affluence. This was
originally met with feminist and racial criticisms of body objectification, but
these arguments have quickly evaporated with the rise of Korean pop music.
K-Pop,
combined with a powerful consumer culture, has created a beauty aesthetic that
incorporates Caucasian features without replicating them. Cosmetic surgery is a
large part of creating this carefully crafted image which is presented to
consumers as both desirable and attainable. Many Korean celebrities act as
spokespeople for surgical companies, influencing youngsters who want a similar
appearance to their idols.
One of
the most common surgical procedures is blepharoplasty, also known as double-eyelid
surgery. Unlike many Westerners, the majority of Koreans have monolid eyes
without a visible crease. The procedure is designed to give patients a double
eyelid appearance and has become so common that is rarely considered as
cosmetic surgery. Jawline thinning, skin bleaching and rhinoplasty are also
popular procedures.
Beauty comes at a price for many cosmetic
surgery patients
As the
popularity of cosmetic surgery booms, many unqualified surgeons are exploiting
the market and performing procedures on unwitting patients. This has led to a
rise in the number of botched surgeries, where patients who go under the knife
are left with life-changing conditions.
South
Korea’s cosmetic surgery industry is heavily regulated, but patients are often
fooled by fake reviews of clinics on social media platforms and blogs.
Third-parties are paid, often in the form of free surgical procedures, to write
fake online reviews designed to attract naive patients through the doors of the
clinic.
Last
year, a huge backlash against the cosmetic industry erupted after a Chinese
medical tourist was announced brain dead after undergoing surgery at a clinic
in Seoul. But despite these high profile cases, thousands of South Koreans and
medical tourists continue to be lured by the promise of beauty. In a place
where cosmetic procedures are as commonplace as haircuts, surgery is simply
seen as another milestone on the road to success.
Jhonson
Peterson
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