South Korean teens buy dreams of beauty in Plastic Alley

In a beauty-infatuated society, children as young as 10 are ready targets for the surgeons of Plastic Alley, reports ANNA GIZOWSKA

The dazzling neon lights, designer boutiques and bustling streets are much the same in cities the world over - but Seoul is no ordinary city and Plastic Alley is no ordinary alley.

Where else can a girl call at a plastic surgeon's office after school with a celebrity magazine in her satchel and return home unrecognisable to her parents?

While chitchat about boys, celebrities and fashion is commonplace in playgrounds throughout the Western world, in Seoul the hot topic for kids as young as 10 is plastic surgery.

This isn't just idle tittletattle. Most of these Korean children are planning for their futures and as soon as many of them reach 14 it's off to surgery.

Beauty is big business in South Korea and many a future job has been secured by the curve of a surgically altered cheekbone and the wink of changed eyelids.

The practice has become so widespread in Asia that Japan and China introduced regulations last year to control the industry. But plastic surgeons in South Korea remain unregulated. And many unscrupulous surgeons are operating on teens without parental consent.

Although the South Korean Government does not keep official records, the number of unqualified surgeons is thought to be in the thousands. That's something the Korean Society of Plastic Surgeons is fighting to regulate.

Situated around the aptly named Rodeo St strip in Seoul's fashionable Apkujung district, Plastic Alley - with its 400 clinics and thousands of surgeons - is fast becoming Asia's cosmetic city of the century, with a plastic surgeon in almost every building.

With more than three million cosmetic procedures performed each year, this is where dreams of plastic beauty come true, and where picking a new face is as simple as picking a new pair of designer shoes - and considerably cheaper than anywhere else in the world.

Dr Sung-Tack Kwon, secretary of the Korean Society of Plastic Surgeons and Professor at the Department of Plastic Surgery at Seoul National University College of Medicine, says there are 1287 qualified plastic surgeons, of whom about 400 teach and work in hospitals.

"Anyone with a medical licence and a bag of scalpels can set up as a plastic surgeon, even if they qualified as a general practitioner or a gynaecologist," Kwon says. "Seventy new surgeons enter the industry every year."

Although advertising their work is prohibited in Korea, plastic surgeons go to great lengths to tempt clients into their clinics with elaborate ads, oversized billboards and lavish websites.

"A doctor who is not qualified can still promote himself as a good doctor and people can think that he is qualified, but many doctors confuse their customers with false advertising," says Dr Hyo Kyung Chung, a member of the Board of Plastic Reconstructive Surgery Society and one of Seoul's relatively few registered female plastic surgeons. "The disturbing trend is that procedures are being marketed at young people - the ones most insecure about their looks.

"In high school they have a strong desire to have surgery and often in their vacations they get jobs to pay for it, even without their parents' knowledge.

"I see so many bad eye and nose jobs. The girls are so miserable and regret having the surgery. I do my best to correct it. They continue to go because it is about 60 per cent cheaper than seeing a regular doctor and they agree to operate on them as early as 12 without parental consent."


What could a young Korean girl want to change about her appearance and why?

"Koreans want it all," says Dr Ing Gon Kim, owner of the Apkujung Feel Aesthetic Clinic and one of Seoul's best-qualified plastic surgeons.

As in the rest of Asia, South Korea's primary cosmetic obsession is with the eyes. Having bigger eyes is every girl's dream and it can now be realised through a simple operation in which a small incision is made above the eye to create an artificial double lid.

"Koreans are born with small eyes, wide and flat faces, and flat, low noses," says Kim. "What they would like are larger eyes, narrower and more oval-shaped faces, and higher and narrower noses.

"Double-eyelid surgery is the most popular, and girls - sometimes boys - start having this done as early as 12. But I do not recommend this. I wait until they are at least 16 or preferably 18."

Such is the preoccupation with beauty in Seoul that girls are even having their calf muscles reduced by 40 per cent to gain slimmer legs. The Society of Plastic Surgeons strongly disapproves of this operation, but it is the only organisation that accepts directives from the Government.

Society chairman and professor Dr Yoon-Ho Lee says the procedure is unnecessary unless the patient has suffered trauma or deformity to the calf.

Some Koreans even want their faces lengthened and their cheeks made more angular. Some go as far as having their jawbone reshaped to attain a slimmer face.

To a Westerner, these procedures may suggest an increasing shift towards a more westernised standard of beauty. But it appears beneath the surface of this culturally rich, highly developed, and technologically advanced city lies a disturbing underbelly of insecurity.


Some argue that the operations are not a shift towards a westernised standard of beauty but a universal standard that has been around for a long time.

"Thousands of years ago, Eastern and Western literature described beauty in terms of having red lips, a pale and oval complexion, slim waist, slim legs, large eyes and large breasts," Kwon says. "This is neither Eastern nor Western. Beauty has always been described this way."

But he does agree that globalisation has affected Korean society.

"The popularity of plastic surgery is influenced by the American culture, the competition for work and by human nature - everyone wants to look better.

"Many years ago, teaching and education was seen as an honourable profession. Now being David Beckham or a movie star is more honourable and that is what children see and want to copy," Kwon says.

Not only the children have dreams of fame and fortune through surgery. Many parents actively encourage their children to have the operations.

Unemployment in South Korea has grown to 3.3 per cent and 788,000 are jobless. Competition for jobs is fierce.

"Many 20-year-olds are jobless," Chung says. "Graduates leave college and cannot find work.

"I think Korean parents love their children too much and are willing to do anything for them, even if it means rewarding them with surgery when they pass exams or find work. They see it as helping their children.

"Koreans are very concerned about physical appearance. Women, in particular, place a high value on being attractive.

"Many feel their chances for employment will be enhanced if they possess physical beauty and the necessary qualifications. It's all about survival of the fittest."

SURGEON: I SEE NOTHING WRONG WITH WHAT I DO

Dr Hyo Kyung Chung, 44, is one of 27 women surgeons in South Korea.

"I operate on 16-year-old girls - I see nothing wrong with what I do," she says. "I would rather they came to me than end up with an unqualified doctor who may scar them for life.

"I do feel the pressure comes from society, the media, magazines, the internet, and television.

"I am not happy about it. But people in Korea feel extremely pressured to be in a group, to conform. I do not know why, but it is true. Girls come in with magazines and ask to look like their favourite celebrities, Britney Spears and Gwyneth Paltrow, but I discourage this.

"Almost all my are patients are pretty and charming. They know their looks are powerful in this society. They are more conscious of their appearance than the less-pretty ones."

Jin-Ah Lee, 24, a French literature graduate, is starting a job with a fashion trading company.

"My father suggested nose surgery when I was 10. He had always said that I looked okay apart from my nose.

"My nose was quite high, but the tip was a bit round and low and I felt that if I got nose surgery I would look more beautiful and people would treat me better.

"In Korea, the common thinking is that beauty is having big eyes, a small face like a baby and a high nose - but not too high.

An So-Young, 22, a student, says: "I think eyes of man are the windows of the soul. I want larger and more beautiful eyes. I have a difficult time making up my eyes. My sister, who is 20, had her eyes done and she looked beautiful. Her confidence was so much better. She was like a different person after she had double-eyelid surgery."