Korean Sociological Image #3: From Asian to Caucasian
If you weren’t aware of it previously, then learning about the pressure Korean women are under to have cosmetic surgery for the sake of getting jobs certainly makes you less judgmental about it. Here are two quick excerpts on the subject from this excellent article from The Independent, which I found via this article about the cosmetic surgery component to Korea’s recent drive to become a hub for medical tourism.
First, from the introduction:
The patients crowding the waiting rooms of plastic surgeons in upmarket neighbourhoods such as Apgujeong want jobs with industrial conglomerates such as Samsung or LG. They are rushing to clinics for chieop seonghyeong or “employment cosmetics,” surgical procedures designed to improve a job seeker’s chance of being hired.
Ahn Yun-Seon is a typical candidate. A 21-year-old economics student, she has a job interview scheduled for early May. Last week she spent 1 million won (£538) for surgery on her gums and ears. She hopes to get a job in a bank. “Female bank employees must wear their hair tied back,” she said. “It’s important to have nice looking ears and a good smile.”
And then the conclusion:
Parents in Korea, especially in Seoul, spend a fortune on their children’s education and often go deep into debt to secure them a place at a top university. Knowing the sacrifices their parents have made, many young Koreans are prepared to go to extremes in search of a good job.
“People doctor their CVs and the photos they send to employers,” said Lee Ho-Jeong, who graduated from Hanyang University. “Doctoring their faces is the logical next step, especially when people are scared that they won’t get hired.”
But much more curious than the demand, is its manifestations in Korean women’s choices of cosmetic surgery operations, for they tend to plump for (no pun intended) – double-eyelid surgery, the shaving down of high cheekbones, Romanizing of noses, and so forth – all of which have the effect of making one’s face look much more Caucasian than Mongoloid (East Asian). And place those choices in the context of an East Asian mania for light skin also, then when one sees the image above (source: Scoubi), an advertisement for this cosmetic surgery clinic in Busan, then it’s difficult not to conclude that Korean women have Caucasian ideals of beauty, as I argued in this post in April last year.
Naturally that post aroused quite a *cough* heated debate in the comments section, not least from Korean women themselves, and to be fair I now acknowledge the historical role that, for one, light skins have played as a sign of the non-farming, indoor elite (albeit not just in Asia). And also the fact that I was strongly influenced in my original opinions by seeing such things as an abundance of Caucasian models in Korean advertisements, and that so many Korean cartoon characters tended to look Caucasian also, whereas in reality “Caucasian ideals of beauty” are only one of a host of factors responsible for each (see here – scroll down a little – and here respectively).
But as Michael Hurt wrote in 2005, arguments that modern ideals of appearance are merely extensions of historical associations of light skin and so forth, must confront the:
…big, fat, white elephant in the room that is America and the West. You have to consider how having white skin here in Korea is not simply a matter of lightness anymore, of being a sign that one doesn’t have to work outside in a field. The relative pallor of one’s skin is now inevitably linked to notions of civility and class that are also reflected against the very real presence of white people, who are not surprisingly, positively associated with notions of civility and class.
But which has been notably absent from counter-arguments that I’ve heard so far. So although I’m always open to changing my mind, and think I have a pretty good record on this blog for admitting when I’ve been mistaken and/or changing my mind upon hearing new evidence, until someone actually addresses that point at all then I’ll continue to believe that “Caucasianness” is a very strong, albeit usually subconscious and/or indirect, influence on modern Korean women’s cosmetic surgery choices. But by all means, if you disagree then please try and prove me wrong!
Update: Turns out, this post led to some lively discussion on this K-pop blog, even though the first image wasn’t loading properly at the time!
(For all posts in the “Korean Sociological Image” series, see here)
Yes I agree, a pleasant looking face does attract instant attention from Employers and do have an edge over the not-so-good-looking-people. I know its not fair but then thats the way the human nature is.
I hope someday all this changes and all people are treated as one irrespective of how they look.
With all my respect, it’s really bad to change about our selves, to try to looks like another one or western, it’s totally wrong in my opinion, in this way Korean will lose their personality, Korean are beautiful coz they are Korean not because they like western, in this way we will go directly to westerners, But Korean with their narrow eyes and how they look like, it’s a another type of beauty, also as we can find in Africa, or Arabic, also Indian, some people love blond hair or black , someone like black skins another is not, some people prefer and love black ayes another prefer blue, even westerners i met a lot of them and some girls wish to have brown or black eyes, yes i do agree if there is a problem we have to try and fix it but NOT to change my self(nose,eyes,lips…) to looks like another one NOOO
I’m Egyptian and some girls which to have blue or green eyes like another Egyptian girls or like western and vice versa,
So it’s better to care trust in our selves much more and keep our personality.
Thanks a lot
Adam Essa
This just speaks volumes as to ones insecurities!! Korean shouldn’t be so self-conciouse they should know that at the end of the day you don’t live by other people judgements but by how well you live your own life as happy and fulfilling as you can.
Sorry to bother you with all thes comments.