I would have never made it to age 25 without getting plastic surgery had I grown up and lived in South Korea.
Patricia Marx’s most recent feature for the New Yorker, “About Face,” made me feel incredibly fortunate to have grown up in America. Reading about the rise of plastic surgery in South Korea — and the culture that makes such procedures permissible and even encouraged — made me resent the obsession with perfection and comparison that pervades much of Asian cultures.
According to her research, anywhere from ⅕ to ⅓ of women in South Korea have had reconstructive surgery. Over 50% of women living in South Korea in their twenties have gone under the knife. Men, apparently, are not exempt from this type of culture either, totaling at about 15% of reported cases.
At one of the 500 clinics in South Korea’s “Improvement Quarter,” you could choose from: “… Barbie-Nose Rhinoplasty (“Let it up to have doll-like sharp nose!”), Forehead Volumization (“Your beauty will increase!”), Hip-Up surgery (to achieve “a feminine and beautiful Latino-like body line”), arm-lifts, calf reductions, dimple creation, whitening injections (called Beyoncé injections by one clinic), eye-corner lowering (so you don’t look fierce), smile-lifts that curl the corners of your lips and chisel an indentation into the crooks so that your now permanently happy mouth looks as if it were drawn by a six-year-old (this operation is popular with flight attendants), and “cat surgery,” to fix your floppy philtrum.”
My forehead measures just shy of two inches (did it just now with a ruler). I spent a bit too much time playing outside and I have been blessed with naturally tan skin. On a good day, one of my eyes would show a bit of a double-eyelid (not mentioned in the options listed above, but double-eyelid surgery is discussed broadly in the piece). The width of my face is perhaps, about an inch too wide in each direction of my midline. Perhaps, after you broke my jaw a few times, I would have a more “desirable, narrow jawline.”
After scrutinizing the dimensions of my face in the mirror with a ruler, I imagine I would be a perfect candidate for plastic surgery in South Korea.
(All that aside, I think my nose could pass as somewhat acceptable.)
The obsession with surgery in South Korea, however, runs deeper than what we see at face value, and seems to be attached to an obsession for perfection within Asian cultures.
I had a pretty active childhood. When I visited China after a summer and season of playing volleyball — and a few weeks into winter track season — my relatives were quick to comment with a slight glance of disappointment “Dan dan zhang de zheng zhuang!” (“Wudan looks very strong!”) What their compliment veiled was the sentiment that I didn’t appear skinny enough. Of course, I probably did look strong at the time: you’d expect muscle to accrue on my bones after playing sports consistently for a few months.
I never thought there was anything wrong with my weight, but my parents encouraged me to lose it, anyway. I was told on occasion — particularly when summer rolled around — that my arms weren’t strong enough, nor was my belly flat enough.
Despite these critiques of my body, I never felt compelled to change the way I looked. Perhaps, subconsciously, I’ve internalized the messages that dominate American media: “strong is the new sexy,” or “you are perfect just the way you are.” I have grown up in a society that has encouraged me to embrace my flaws, and, I’ve learned that the more time I spend in my own body, the more appreciative I’ve become of the opportunities my body allows me to have. In college, I taught myself to swim. When I started practicing yoga, I couldn’t even touch my toes. After five years of consistently practicing yoga, I’ve learned a fancy party trick or two.
While I surround myself with communities that are welcoming and tolerant of all body and face types, I also acknowledge that the aspect of comparison — beyond just physical appearance — still seeps into the experience of growing up Asian American in the states. Around college admissions season, the Chinese School community — which I was a part of for over ten years — inevitably buzzes with news about who got in where, who got waitlisted, who got rejected, and where they were going to go . If any of my parents’ friends’ children were moving to New York, I’d be told over the phone, “So-and-so is your age, and they’re making three times your salary. What are you doing with your life?” Growing up, if I scored a 96 on a test, I would be reprimanded: “I guess a 96 is ok, but what did (name of Asian friend) get? What’s stopping you from doing just as good as them?”
I don’t mean to say any of these things as a check against my parents and I don’t hold their seemingly hurtful comments against them. I realize it’s difficult to shake off a rigid way of thinking that’s been embedded into 30+ years of living in a country with very strong values.
Ironically, my mom once made an off-the-cuff comment about the only person who I should be comparing myself to is the person I was yesterday. It’s one of the few nuggets of wisdom she’s imparted onto me that I’ve held on to as I navigated life after graduating high school and moving out of my parents’ home. I have always found the culture of comparison toxic and stifling, even in pre-med science classes, graduate school admissions. For me, it’s easier to celebrate my peers’ successes instead of wishing that I could be in their shoes.
It’s safe for me to say that I’ve rejected the idea of perfection and comparison to a point where it is unproductive or — in the case of plastic surgery — incredibly harmful. This doesn’t mean that I don’t hold to myself to a high standard: it just means that I know what my limits, strengths, and weaknesses are. Some limits — professional and personal — are the ones that should be pushed (whether these limits are explored because I feel incentivized by the success of others or not). As for the harder, physical limits — well, let’s just say I don’t think anything’s worth breaking bones over.
