Cosmetic Surgery in North Korea?
( Photo by Eric Lafforque )
Was I wrong? Does this article about North Korean women getting double eyelid-surgery contradict my arguments about South Korean women ultimately having Caucasian ideals of beauty? I don’t think so - North Korea will always be a unique case – but this new use of double-eyelids as a status symbol there would certainly have little to do with Caucasians.
But I emphasise the ”new”, as despite what many commentators to that earlier (and perhaps most controversial) post of mine have said, I’ve still yet to find one source that mentions that any East Asian population thought double-eyelids particularly attractive before the middle of the Twentieth Century, not coincidentally when richer, then usually taller Caucasians arrived in great numbers and East Asians got to see images of their enviable lifestyles on TV. I’m quite happy to learn of any evidence that they’re not related, but man…I’ve gone through enough journal articles on the subject in the past few months to write about nothing else for the remainder of the year if I chose to, and any arguments for that are noticeable only for their absence.
(As a small aside for a moment, I’m actually lucky I found the original article at all, as this blog’s focus gives me little time for checking out the numerous but mostly security-focused blogs about North Korea out there. In turn, I strongly suspect that there’d be few readers of those blogs interested in this blog also, so any focus here would be counterproductive on my part too. Having said that, if you’re interested in East Asia but also turned off by anything to do with North Korea, then I recommend not listening to the numerous podcasts by the Korea Society on the country… they’re so good that they’ll make a convert out of you despite yourself)
( “The Eye” by hstoutzenberger )
The article is two years old, but the conclusions to be made from from it still apply. And sorry to freak you all out with that photo, but a sense of unease is probably appropriate when you read that the North Korean elite are getting cosmetic surgery while their neighbours are starving.
“60% of Single Women in Shinuiju Get Plastic Surgery on Their Eyelids”
By Kwon Jeog Hyun, Dandong of China [2006-05-10]
Plastic surgery is has quickly spread among young single women in North Korea. In Shinuiju alone, more than 60% of the women have reported having had work done.
Trader Kim Man Gil (pseudonym, 53), who trades shoes and clothes between Shinuiju and Dandong, China, said that, “North Korean young women have increasingly gotten plastic surgery on their eyes… At a glance, more than half of the young women walking in the streets have signs of plastic surgery”.
( “Big Eyes & Small Eyes” by LAN LAN )
Okay, call me picky, but although this is the first time I’ve ever heard of The Daily NK that this article is from, I don’t exactly have a good first impression of it considering how happy it is to cite the statistics of one trader with North Korea as gospel truth. Sure, reliable information on North Korea is often difficult to get, but the anonymous “North Korea insider” quoted later doesn’t quite cut it for sufficient corroborating sources.
North Korea has implicitly allowed plastic surgery hospitals in Pyongyang, Chongjin and Shinuiju to complete simple double-eyelid surgeries and tattooed eyebrows. Officially, the North Korean government does not permit plastic surgery, yet defectors said that in big cities plastic surgery is commonly performed in secret.
Regarding women who work at North Korean tourist resorts, the North Korean government actively encourages plastic surgery; a fact many visitors to North Korea have already attested to.
If so, why? I can’t see Kim Jong-il pandering to international tastes by wearing Western suits anytime soon (unlike Castro), but surely this is a small step in the same direction? If it is true, then the Caucasian element would possibly be a factor, and as well as the push factors from the government Caucasians may well have a certain exotic appeal as a pull factor for those women too, no matter how much they’re demonized in propaganda. But all that is speculation, and having criticized the article for its lack of reliability then I’m not going to cherry-pick things from it that happen to agree with my arguments.
( Image by Voodoo Plastik )
Mr. Kim said that, “Starting in 2004, plastic surgery by non-licensed operators, not doctors, has been in vogue”. He added that, “Although the government does not allow plastic surgery, because of its extensive popularity, the government is reluctant to crack down on it”.
Although plastic surgery is a generally expensive undertaking, women of all economic and social strata are finding the means to get “fixed”. Kim noted, “Because many people in Shinuiju work at places related to Foreign Currency Earning departments and are thus well-off, they have enough money to get plastic surgery… Yet even women who do not have enough money sell food until they are able to pay for it”.
I seriously doubt that. According to an excellent podcast in February on the state of North Korean agriculture and comparative regional rates of malnutrition entitled North Korea: Market Opportunity, Poverty and the Provinces by Helen Clark of the University of Warwick (again, courtesy of the Korea Society), even Pyongyang citizens were struggling to find sufficient food when she was conducting her research, just before this article was written.
Kim mentioned that, “Meanwhile, in counties or districts away from Shinuiju, most people have so little money that one in three children in a family cannot attend school. The gulf between rich and poor is really wide and serious”.
He said that, “Plastic surgery in the North is limited to relatively simple double-eyelid surgery and tattooing of eyebrows. As for Shinuiju, 60% of single women without double eyelids seem to have gotten plastic surgery”. Subsequently he noted, “North Korean women and Chinese women are all the same in that they want to be pretty”.
A common side-effect of North Korean double-eyelid surgery is that after an operation the eyes come to look artificial, due to the relative thickness of the lower eyelids.
Well, that kind of contradicts the idea of it being “pretty”, yes? (check out the mannequin-like figure in the original article). Again, despite what some commentators think, that the women themselves may well get the operation because “they want to pretty” merely changes the question to “Why do they think that is pretty?” rather than actually answering anything. This shouldn’t need pointing out, but in my experience the “because they want to be pretty” crowd seem pretty myopic in refusing to acknowledge that standards of attractiveness vary according to time and place.
( Photo by MyCine )
To give a quick for instance, one very close to home, I’m rather tired of Korean women’s current obsession with baby-faced, smooth-skinned feminine men meaning that my baldness shaved head garners dismissive and often insulting comments from some of them as I pass by (worth it for the look on their faces as I insult them in Korean back), whereas its’ general acceptance in Western countries now (but not 20-30 years ago) means that I can reap the fruits of the increased status and maturity it conveys. I could mention virility also, but then I promised I wouldn’t.
Plastic surgery on one eye cost 500 won ($0.17) in 2004, yet now is quoted to be around 1,500 won ($0.50) in 2006. Both eyes cost 3,000 won, or 1 US dollar. As for eyebrow tattooing, one eyebrow cost 200 won ($0.06) in 2004, and now has risen to 500 won.
In order to confirm the numbers of young women getting plastic surgery in Shinuiju, we contacted a North Korean insider. During the conversation, our contact asked us, “Why does it sound so strange to want to be pretty? Because it [the surgery] does not cost much, many wealthy women have already gotten plastic surgery or are trying to get it”.
Mr. Kim said “Most women have gotten plastic surgery through recommendations from other people. And well-known surgeons make lots of money”.
All in all, an interesting but ultimately frustrating article because of it’s unreliability: if any readers more knowledgeable than I can shed more light on the phenomenon then I’d be very grateful. Although I don’t think anything it mentions contradicts arguments I’ve made about South Korean women’s body ideals, it does raise some interesting related issues.
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I don’t how true the story is, either, but if indeed North Korean women in relatively prosperous border towns like Shinuiju are getting double lids, it is due to the influence of Chinese and South Korean pop culture products like entertainment DVDs, not any direct attempt to look like Caucasians. Evolutionary anthropological research into universal sex preferences shows that large eyes are considered beautiful across cultures, as they are a sign of youth. I believe that our eyes stop growing in size around the age of 8-10 while the rest of our body continues to grow. As we get older, our eyelids sag and our noses and ears lengthen, giving the appearance of smaller eyes. Asians who get double lids are not trying to look white anymore than whites who tan are trying to look Hispanic or black. Raising the nose bridge with a silicone implant is another issue since smaller noses tend to be preferred although that is less universal. I think prominent noses are considered a beauty feature in India and Pakistan.
I’m rather tired of Korean women’s current obsession with baby-faced, smooth-skinned feminine men meaning that my baldness shaved head garners dismissive and often insulting comments from some of them as I pass by (worth it for the look on their faces as I insult them in Korean back),
Is that right? Is it only women? I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised that in 2008 there are still Koreans who presume that the foreigner in their midst does not understand Korean and therefore it’s okay to say whatever you want in front of their faces. For what it’s worth, I think baldness is sexy. I much prefer men either to accept their receding hairline or shave it, rather than plug it or worse still, comb over it. Way before Samuel L. Jackson, there was Kojak!
Besides comb-overs and plugs, my other anti-aging pet peeve is people who botox the hell out of every line until they have a taut mask incapable of a genuine smile or frown and older people who dye every strand of gray hair black or dark brown, which makes every wrinkle and line all the more glaring.
Sonagi,
thanks for the comments. I agree that North Koreans would be influenced by images in Chinese and South Korean pop culture products like entertainment DVDs, and notbe making any direct attempt to look like Caucasians. But although I don’t think Chinese or South Korean women in those products are consciously trying to “look White” when they get, say, double eyelid-surgery, there is plently of evidence that they have adopted Caucasian ideals of beauty, as I discuss a great deal here, here and in this series here.
I probably exggerate the number of adults making insulting comments about my head in front of me. Like so much about expat life here, I may get nothing for 3 months and then have a week of nothing but. Teenagers do it all the time of course, especially boys, but then teenage boys are rude and obnoxious in any country. Amongst Korean women, I’ve been directly told that my hairstyle is liked and gotten enough attention from them to keep my vanity intact, and come to think of it it’s almost only ever been the “princesses” amongst them who have been so insulting. They’re the sort who spend over an hour getting ready for a trip to Starbucks with friends and then spend the whole time taking pictures of themselves and loudly telling each other how much prettier and richer they are than everyone else there, so I’m hardly alone in being insulted by and disliking them.
Men in their early twenties, of course, will laugh at me as well, usually to elevate themselves in front of the female company they’re with, and hell, who can blame them? I was almost just as bad. I honestly care so little for the opinions of undergraduate-age Koreas that I usually can’t be bothered making an issue of it, and if it does impress the woman he’s with then they deserve each other as far as I’m concerned.
But discussing foreigners in front of their faces is defiinitely a fact of life here, and isn’t a bad habit going away any time soon. It’s not just assuming that he or she doesn’t speak Korean either: it’s more a collective, almost autistic inability to look at something from another person’s persepctive, and very few Koreans ever seem to stop and think that even by body language alone non-Koreans could tell what is the subject of conversation, let alone that in my case, say, that I may have heard the Korean word for “baldie” a thousand times and so I’d understand that word at least. At work too, I have myself and my classes discussed by colleagues with no thought to disguise the topic by, say, not using my name. It doesn’t matter that I can speak enough Korean to get the gist of what they’re saying: I’m already pegged as fair game to be talked about because I’m not Korean, so any language ability on my part just doesn’t register.
Sorry, I’m ranting a little. I’ve heard that not being able to look at things from another person’s perspective extends to those of other Koreans’ too, but often that’s very difficult to believe. It’s certainly when Koreans treat me like I’m invisible that I feel the most excluded and isolated here.
Korean autism: that is a great metaphor. Been there, brother. It would amaze me when Koreans would talk about me using the word “waeguksaram,” one of the first words a foreigner learns since we hear it so often. Another cultural meme at work here is the blunt talk about others’ appearance. Koreans do this to each other, too, although those on the receiving end of criticism naturally don’t like it.
Per Capita Plastic Surgery Country Ranking:
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/hea_pla_sur_pro_percap-plastic-surgery-procedures-per-capita
South Korea = #27
North Korea = nowhere to be found
the Korean obsession with beauty and plastic surgery astounds me on a daily basis, as does the need for many people here in South Korea to criticize me (a Westerner) and everyone around them. This is a very negative, critical culture that often seems unable to get below the surface. My question is, why has the culture evolved this way? What makes one country (in general because, of course, there are always exceptions) evolve to promote negativity, criticism, and constant pressure to conform and another culture (like European or North American cultures) emerge as a place where individuality and innovation are prized?
– another expat in Korea
Well, I don’t mean to sound facetious, but it sounds like you need a little bit of a break, although I understand the need to rant about the place occasionally. Seriously though, I wouldn’t describe Korean society as necessarily more negative and critical for instance, although it is certainly done much more explicitly and directly to the recipients than in most Western countries. I can’t account for that, but I can say that 4 decades of having non-conformity interpreted as communist subversion certainly didn’t help individuality, as I discuss here, here, and here. The examination and rote-learning based Korean education system doesn’t exactly encourage critical-thinking either, as I discuss here, but that’s not to say that it doesn’t exist or that there isn’t a lot of criticism of and debate about negative aspects of Korean society out there. It’s just all in Korean!