Buying The Ideal Face Of South Korea

Although the media generates the idea that women have no self control, the media also provokes the misleading idea that women have no self confidence in themselves. Through the various messages and ideas that advertisement, television shows, cartoons and even books sell- women tend to lose self confidence in themselves, but the media tends to send the message that women already have no self confidence. In “Love My Neighbors, Hate Myself: The Vicissitudes of Affect in Cosmetic Surgery,” Virginia Blum opens up her articles with an observation about the sudden rise in the number of popular television shows about plastic surgery and the shift of increasing numbers of women that receive plastic surgery. In her article regarding the reasons women desire plastic surgery, Blum states, “...certain conventional cultural values had to be recruited on behalf of representing these surgeries not as vain and superficial but as a route toward glowing self improvement, not as acts of self-

Smith focuses on Koreans’ desire to achieve or acquire Caucasian like features. He examines South Korean history in order to uncover the reasons why plastic surgery became so important in South Korean culture. He also explains the benefits of having an attractive appearance not only for social purposes but also for work.

With the birth of social media in recent years, body image has become an issue for many. Weight concern is particularly prominent in East Asian countries like Korea (Lee, et al., 2014). Because of traditional Korean beauty standards that often emphasize slimness (Lee, et al., 2014), it is interesting to observe the juxtaposition of mukbangs’ appeal in a society that values the opposite of what is

These modern day people feel the need to try and fit into the western culture, even Asian American, so desperate they are willing to go under a knife to fit into the mold. For example, in the New York Time, author Patricia Marx highlighted, “Many dispute the notion that Korean plastic surgery today emulates a Western aesthetic, pointing out, for example, that big eyes are universally considered appealing and that pale skin connotes affluence.” This is essential because western culture have a major impact on the Asian American community that brought the changes in cosmetic surgery to Korea influences the change among Asian to transform into “American” literally. Having blepharoplasty, rhinoplasty, shaving down their jaw lines just to name a few Asian American is doing this cosmetic surgery to become what Asian American community considered being a true American. Because within today society, everyone wants to fit it, and for Asian American to accomplish the western culture would be reconstructing their features to becoming a Western American so they can blend into American society.

Thesis Statement: Since the media has placed remarkable pressure on the physical imperfections of women, the majority of females nowadays are unable to understand the fact that getting their face reconstructed to fit society’s concept of beauty is definitely not the way to promote beauty.

Plastic surgery is one of the most controversial topic today. But the real question is, what is the reason? Beauty is one of the main things America celebrates, and reality tv is slaving our minds into believing if you’re not pretty, you will not make it big, whether in the television industry or not. A study published by APF found that attractive real estate agents were able to sell homes at a higher price than marketers that were not attractive. Other companies have explored the matter, and they have found beautiful people tend to make money and get promotions more often. Jobs like modeling have destroyed most people’s self-confidence. When people began to complain about people being more beautiful than others, we came up with a solution:

Women of all ages, especially numerous college-age women embrace unlikely ideals of what their body size and shape essentially should be. These ideas can be in cooperation physically and emotionally corrupt; without them even apprehending the damage they causes themselves. Most women typically want to look their finest try to excel in their goals, jobs, and more just by being beautiful. There are billions of products and even procedures, such as plastic surgery, cosmetic surgery, and surgeries to place on permanent makeup, which is available and advertised in the daily media. And all of these advertisements claim that they can help women accomplish these goals of their desired “ideal of beauty”. This is a problem that we can bluntly see within today’s culture. What our society reflects as their view of beauty, has the tendency to change, erratically. And this means that our pursuit of beauty tends to be lifelong and we will be subjected to the fancies of trendsetters, media, and fashion industries on a daily

In her 2005 essay “The Pitfalls of Plastic Surgery,” Camille Paglia condemns the “routine” plastic surgery middle-aged women receive in order to fit society’s youthful mold. Even though she acknowledges the artfulness that can go into the cosmetic surgery, Paglia despises the “generic cookie cutter sameness.” With the advancement in the medical technology and the accessibility of treatments like Botox, the amount of women who receive surgery has drastically increased over the past ten years. Due to the withstanding social expectations for a youthful, feminine appearance, I agree with Paglia 's argument that women are constantly pressured to go under the knife in order for their aesthetics to meet cultural standards.

Images produced by the media will make people do almost anything to fit American standards of the perfect body. Plastic surgery offers a quick fix to help achieve this goal but no matter how much surgery nothing is perfect. Images produced by media, quick fixes and the outcome of the fixes are problems that women of all ages deal with.

In a society so consumed by the ideology of beauty, it makes sense as to why so many women these days undergo cosmetic surgery. The definition of beauty has long been obstructed and changed. In the past, if you look at the woman, you will see they are curvy, during this era being thin meant you were poor where as a beautiful and wealthy woman would be plump because she could afford fine dining. As society has changed, being slender has become the new trend, creating the idea that in order to be truly beautiful one must be thin. The movie stars in Hollywood, although most people realize the beautifying changes that are made to the pictures, this idea of 'beauty ' and 'desire ' still lingers in the mind of whoever comes across it. Our society is bombarded with several different ideologies of beauty but beauty is in the eye of the beholder. The beauty standards that have been set should not be what are shaping people around the world and influencing them to go through with plastic surgery. The use of plastic surgery has changed from a medical procedure used to reconstruct the wounded or people with birth defects to reconstructing something people do not like about themselves. Plastic surgery was used during WWI in 1910 and after the war, skin grafting grew. The first training program in the United States was in 1924 thanks to Dr. John Davis. In 1950-1959, plastic surgery was used broadly to repair cleft pallet. It wasn’t until about

We live in a body-obsessed culture. Women feel pressured to have the perfect bodies, and we believe so many lies about what a perfect body is from the media. Women are today influenced by images that we see in the media, and sometimes the influence is so great that we risk our lives trying to portray what we see. Across the board throughout different civilizations, there have been so many distortions of what the perfect body looks like placed in our minds by the media. Many people between ages 19 - 50 become obsessed with looking like the images they see delineated by the media. Women and teenagers what to look like their favorite celebrity, so they do plastic surgeries to portray what they

Plastic Surgery has become a worldwide epidemic in today’s world. The number of plastic surgeries continues to increase since 2010. In today’s day and age, plastic surgery is one of the most popular and requested procedures. Females are opting to have plastic surgery because they dislike their body image. Society has impacted many people by brain washing them to believe that a person’s body has to be perfect. In order for one to be considered beautiful, television and media influence people’s perceptions of beauty.

We live in a society where people worship beauty. As far as recorded history people have gone to extremes to seek beauty. From foot binding in China to wearing strangulating corsets in Victorian era. People from different race and culture have experimented in every way possible way to look beautiful prior to this popular age of plastic surgery. It’s very common to hear people complain about their appearance, whether it’s their crocked nose, thin lips or flat chest. Remarkably, plastic surgery has been the solution for people who complain. Most people tend to think of plastic surgery as only cosmetic surgery and not as reconstructive surgeries. Plastic surgeries seems to be an invention of modern technology; however its roots lie in the ancient history of India. An Indian surgeon contributed towards the establishment of plastic surgery, it was intended to correct physical deformities acquired during birth, accident, disease or war. These surgeries did not gain the popularity it has today until the First World War. It was during the late 60’s, when doctors started realizing the endless possibilities of plastic surgeries. With the help of this surgery a trained surgeon can replace an amputate body part, remove skin cancer, get rid of unattractive scars and visible birthmarks or rescaling a nose or enhance body parts. Today more and more people from different age groups opt for plastic surgeries to obtain dramatic physical changes. These surgeries were envisioned to restore

Manners represent an individual by the way they dress, behave, communicate, and their etiquette, while customs refer to the traditional way that a culture is practice individually, or by a group of people. Workers are expected to bow to their seniors when they greet them, and to use only formal language to their seniors, as it is rude to speak informally to someone of higher rank. In Korean businesses, meetings are often held in evenings at a restaurant or bar. Drinking is part of the Korean culture, as Koreans believe that drinking helps to bond colleagues in the company, and an offered drink must never be refused as it is considered to be rude. Along with drinking, Karaoke is a popular activity after meetings. People who attend the meeting are usually expected to sing a solo song.

As the Korean wave becoming popular all over the world, more and more people also want to try to imitate the faces of Korean stars or improve their appearances in order to become more beautiful. So, the industry of plastic surgery in South Korea has drawn many tourists’ attention. According to the International Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery (ISAPS), the number of “individuals in South Korea who undergo plastic surgery have reached approximately 20,000 per 100,000 of the general population” (Seok-Chan, 2013). It makes South Korea become famous as a country with high technology of doing plastic surgery. The Korean National Assembly also passed a medical law in 2009 in order to provide a legal basis for hospitals to attract foreign patients from overseas countries (Seok-Chan, 2013). Moreover, the cost of plastic surgery in South Korea was 80% lower than that in the US or the UK (Denisenko, 2010). As a result, many people in different countries have travelled to South Korean for doing plastic surgery by