Yujin Jung

Professor Vincent
English composition 2
24 March 2016
Why do Korean women become western faces?
Have you ever been to South Korea? You can see unbelievable sight if you
visit there. Most Koreans have big eyes with double-edged eyelids and sharp noses
even though they are Asians. These features almost are what westerners have and
Koreans would like to look like them. How can they come true their dream? Plastic
surgery is the answer to be westerners. Recently, its industrys areas are expanding
from fixing faces or body shape to skin care, and Koreans start to enjoy doing plastic
surgery in various areas. Thus, plastic surgery causes the gust to Koreans,
especially women due to many reasons; expectation, social phenomena, and
advertisement.
The first reason of plastic surgery has to do with peoples expectation. Many
people hope to hide their scars and shameful features through treatment. They have
indelible things naturally like giant dots and like cleft lips. They sometimes get painful
injury such as a scar of burn from some accidents. However, regardless of
congenital defects or posteriori defects, there is one way to treat all of them.
(Capistrano, 2014) That way is plastic surgery and they tend to consider doing it.
Besides the purpose of remedy, people wish to have better appearance in terms of
skin, face, and body shape than before. In humans real nature, people dont want to
show their ugly and strange looks to other people. They prefer pretty and stylish

appearance to those features. Also, people anticipate getting more confidence if they
do a surgery. Most of them try to have it because they have complains on body or
face and so on. When their plastic surgery is successful, they can turn positively,
taking much selfie or going out to play.
Another reason why Koreans have cosmetic surgery is Koreas social
phenomena. Koreas traditional beauty has been changing to western beauty. In fact,
originally, it has features such as eyes without doubled eyelids, nose, and, rounded
body. However, these days, many people like to become western people with big
eyes with double eyelids, high noses, and even voluptuous body. To follow the trend
of modern beauty, they attempt to perform plastic surgery. (DongA, 2014) To make
matters worse, appearance-oriented views become very severe in Koreas society
than other countries. It represents peoples way of thinking that the most important
thing is appearance to survive or to win success. American pop artist, Nancy Lang
said, Looks are increasingly important because people have to judge others with
only looks and feeling in modern society that there are no enough time to judge
them. Thus, women have no choice but to addict plastic surgery because
discrimination exists depending on beauty. (Seo, 5) Furthermore, society requires
people to do cosmetic surgery for employment. To get a job, job hunters need some
qualifications like intern career or language score, and employment surgery recently
is included for good impression. According to employments website, 28.5 % of
people responded that they are interested in trying it for employment. (Song, 2010)
Lastly, a lot of various advertisements influence cosmetic surgery. Wellknown Korean celebrities promote some plastic surgery hospital by shooting
advertisement. (Furnham and Levitas, 217-262) They actually operated more than

one section like eyes or noses at no cost. This is called celebrity's sponsorship and
they have to publicize their own hospital with a slogan like 'find your beauty with my
doctor'. (Seo, 63-64) The problem is many people have desire to do it while looking
at advertisements. By the way, not only celebrities but normal citizens are joining in
this promotion with Social media. For example, a person who got cosmetic surgery
reviews to upload her or his before and after pictures and to write on the process of
surgery and self - change. Now, the number of citizens getting cosmetic surgery is
growing and the reviews are more increasing. In addition, surgery hospitals hold
many promotional events constantly. They are exposed on SNS or transportation's
banner etc. Hospitals even install a temporary booth in many universities including
Sookmyung womens University, appeal surgery's benefits, and show that they give
students or employees discount coupons up to 66%. (Chae, 2012) It's no surprise
that many people are tempted to do plastic surgery by advertisement's effect.
All people prefer better life to poor life in the future. For it, they would
undergo plastic surgery once or more than one. However, proportion of Koreans
plastic surgery is higher than other countries. (Lee, 2013) The reasons that most
Koreans have experienced plastic surgery are its expectation, social phenomena,
and advertisement. Of course, beauty can be important, but your appearance is not
everything in your life. Your real appearance is a priceless treasure that your parents
made over for you. Therefore, dont afraid your appearance and be confident by
yourselves!

"Works Cited".

Capistrano, Jon. 10 Reasons Your Plastic Or Cosmetic Surgery Procedure Might

Fail. Xenlife.com. Beauty, 2014. Web. 17 May 2016.
Chae, Hi Seon. Promotional booth of Plastic surgery is digging into universitys
campus. hankooki 15 Jun. 2012. Web. 17 Mar. 2016.
DongA. Different standards of beauty: Joseon and modern. DongA 2 Sep. 2014.
Web. 19 Mar. 2016.
Furnham, Adrian, and James Levitas . Factors that motivate people to undergo
cosmetic surgery National Center for Biotechnology Information 20(4) (2012):
217-262. The Canadian Journal of Plastic Surgery. Web. 2012 winter.
Lee, Sang Yoon. The first country of plastic surgery, what does statistics say?
Gunchi news 15 Mar, 2013.Web. 16 Mar. 2016.
Seo, Jung Hi. Infinite challenge for beauty: Culture of plastic surgery consumption.
Seoul: Naeha, 2008. Print.
Song, Nam Seok. 3 among 10 Employees, I will do plastic surgery EBN news 10
Jun, 2010. Web. 17 Mar. 2016.