Abstract: South Korea has become known as the “plastic surgery capital of the world,” with over a 197% increase in the total amount of cosmetic procedures from 1997 to 2011. The current narrative has placed much emphasis on whether this popularity of plastic surgery among young South Korean women should be criticized. However, not enough have considered the complexity of the issue before jumping into criticism. In this essay, I draw on academic literature, surveys, interviews, and contemporary media in order to suggest that practices of plastic surgery in South Korea are rooted in complex nationalistic and historical influences, and I also explore these practices in the context of a modern Korea. In particular, I aim to emphasize how current beauty standards for Korean women are implicitly tied to the historical search for a national identity in the postwar reconstruction of Korea. I also argue that these standards are continually perpetuated today through remnants of traditional Korean culture such as Neo-Confucianism, collectivism, and physiognomy and that these cultural attitudes coupled with contemporary Korea’s media and economy uphold beauty standards and the prevalence of plastic surgery for women today.
Keywords: plastic surgery, South Korea, beauty standards, national identity, Korean culture
Introduction
“This makes me happy that I don’t live in Korea.”[1] “It is like people out there don’t want to accept the natural beauty but the artificial beauty. That’s sad!”[2] These are two of the top comments under a video titled “We Asked the Women of Korea About Plastic Surgery.” These remarks are critical of the current prevalence and normalization of plastic surgery among young South Korean women. Indeed, South Korea has become the “plastic surgery capital of the world,” where there has been over a 197% increase in the total amount of cosmetic procedures from 1997 to 2011.[3] This has garnered much criticism from many who view this aspect of Korean culture as shallow, artificial, and oppressive. However, opposing views argue that we should not be judgmental of a woman’s choice over her own body.
But unlike typical discussions about Korean plastic surgery, I do not intend to praise nor criticize; rather, I hope to explore deeper complexities within this issue that are often overlooked. Discourse on plastic surgery and beauty in South Korea should not be isolated within a contemporary context but should be acknowledged as rooted in Korea’s unique historical and cultural background. An understanding of this can lay the grounds for more involved and informative conversations about Korean beauty standards. By studying academic literature, surveys, interviews, and contemporary media, I suggest that the practices of plastic surgery in South Korea are rooted in complex nationalistic and historical influences. I also explore these practices in the context of contemporary Korea. The current narrative has placed much emphasis on whether the present popularity of plastic surgery among young South Korean women should be criticized. But not enough have considered the complexity of the issue before jumping into criticism. In this essay, I intend to explore this complexity and analyze the historical underpinnings of the plastic surgery phenomenon in South Korea, emphasizing that current beauty standards for Korean women are implicitly tied to the historical search for a national identity, and that these standards are continually perpetuated today through aspects of Korean culture.
Historical Context: Foreign Influence and the Rejection of the “Oriental” Face
From 1910 to 1945, the Korean peninsula was subject to Japanese colonial rule, a dark period in Korea’s past that still instills bitter sentiment within the Korean people today. By the end of World War II in 1945, and consequently, the end of Japan’s rule of Korea, “there was not one aspect of Korean life that lay unaffected by the pervasiveness and will of Japanese rule.”[4] But shortly after the end of colonial rule came the occupation of South Korea by United States troops and the hasty division of the Korean peninsula into North and South by the U.S. Thus, as a nation that has largely been at the mercy of foreign powers throughout its history, Korea’s search for a sense of national identity has been difficult and complex. In part, this search has been manifested in the desire for a “Korean” image of beauty, which is now sustained through the practice of plastic surgery.
The first widely known case of plastic surgery in South Korea was performed during the U.S. occupation by American surgeon Dr David Millard. This was the beginning of the popularization of the blepharoplasty, or double-eyelid surgery, used to make Asian eyes appear rounder and wider. As Millard notes in his article “Oriental Peregrinations,” “A slant-eyed Korean interpreter… came in requesting to be made into a ‘round-eye.’”[5] To Millard, the typical “Oriental” eye appeared “expressionless” and was associated with “mystery and intrigue,” therefore, the desire for more Western-looking eyes stemmed from a desire to break from the passive appearance of an “Oriental” face.[6]
This rejection of the “Oriental,” or the East Asian face, has carried over into the popularity of certain procedures in contemporary South Korea. Figure 1 is taken from Millard’s 1955 article and Figure 2 shows a modern advertisement for a blepharoplasty by a plastic surgery clinic.[7] Both of these images, although produced in drastically different times, suggest the same idea: the beautiful face for a Korean woman is implicitly one that cannot cling to the natural Asian or “Oriental” expression. Blepharoplasties and rhinoplasties (nose-job surgeries) are currently two of the most popular procedures among young South Korean women today. These procedures appear to utilize Western ideals to reverse the effects of the Asian face, enlarging the eyes and sharpening the nose. Another type of surgery that has garnered recent popularity is known as “V-line” surgery, or a jaw reduction surgery that slims and sharpens the shape of the face. Historically, the round Korean “moon” face was thought to symbolize fertility for a woman; but now, women desire a slim face with a “v-shape.”[8]
Figure 3 helps to illustrate this, showing an advertisement with before-and-after pictures for this type of face-slimming surgery.[9] Again, post-colonial beauty standards in Korea appear to reject the historical “Oriental” look and instead turn to a modern transformation of the Korean face. A comparison with Figure 4, a close-up of a woman’s portrait from pre-colonial Korea’s Joseon dynasty (1392-1897), further emphasizes the modern shift away from the traditional face.[10] The Joseon woman’s rounded face shape more closely resembles the advertisement’s “before” picture, rather than the picture with the v-line face. This shift from the typical Asian face to a more modern Korean beauty standard began with U.S. occupation but is still perpetuated today.
What led to this rejection of the Asian face, and what does it implicate? Some claim that an Asian idealization of post-colonial America’s economic and military superiority led to a type of “cultural imperialism,” that carried over into beauty standards, where the white body was implicitly held as the ideal model for female beauty.[11] This has led many to believe that plastic surgery practices in South Korea today, such as blepharoplasties, are an attempt to Westernize or appeal to Western standards of beauty. However, although Koreans have implicitly assimilated certain aspects of Western beauty into the Korean face, they did so not in an explicit idealization of the West but rather in an attempt to formulate a new national identity separate from their former colonizer, Japan. As scholars Ruth Holliday and Elfving-Hwang, experts in Korean studies, claim: “since liberation in 1945, much effort has gone into highlighting the ‘un-Japaneseness’ of the Korean people.”[12] In relation to female beauty, this constitutes an emphasis on highlighting the “un-Japaneseness” of the face. Thus, Koreans “mobilized the West as a way of rejecting Japan as the self-declared bearer of civilization.”[13]
For Korea, the rejection of certain features of the typical Asian face underlies a rejection of Japan’s brutal influence during the colonial period, but also foreign influence in general. Following the end of colonial rule, Korea looked to a Western beauty standard not in an attempt to idealize the West, but rather in an effort to rejuvenate the “Korean look” into an identity unique to a newly independent Korea. For a country shaped by foreign influence, from Japanese colonization to U.S. occupation, a desire for a new identity stemmed from an “anti-other” sentiment or a rejection of foreign powers. Thus, by drawing on aspects of Western beauty but molding them to the Korean face, the new “Korean look” became one distinct from both the Western face and the traditional East Asian face reminiscent of Korea’s colonizers. The normalization of this new Korean face, separate from the chains of Korea’s past, sustains the need for plastic surgery today to uphold this transformed image of beauty. Consequently, current discussions about plastic surgery among South Koreans today uphold this idea that beauty and the “Korean look” are tied to a sentiment of national pride and identity.
The “Korean Look” and Contemporary Discourse in South Korea on Beauty and Plastic Surgery
When examining rhetoric pertaining to beauty and plastic surgery in South Korea today, it becomes evident that contemporary discourse continues to place Korean beauty in the context of national identity. Much of the narrative advanced by plastic surgeons in Korea indicates this by placing plastic surgery as a beacon of national pride for Koreans. Scholars Ruth Holliday et al. interviewed esteemed Korean plastic surgeons in the Gangnam district, known as a popular plastic surgery hub in Seoul, and found that “surgeons were at pains to point out their reducing dependence on Western or Japanese medical technologies” and the new status of Korea’s plastic surgery technology as one that other countries now look up to.[14] For instance, as plastic surgeon Dr. Phi states, “I can proudly say that even Europe is impressed at some of the skills we possess. Of course, at the beginning, we did imitate a lot of the techniques from the West, but we used it in such a way that would match the faces of Oriental people.”[15]
This indicates an underlying desire to break from America and Japan’s influence in Korea’s history, and to establish South Korea as an independently thriving country that has surpassed their former superiors. Dr. Phi’s statement reiterates the point that Koreans borrowed from certain ideals of the West not in an attempt to imitate, but in an effort to construct a new image of Korean beauty fitting for a newly independent Korea. Not only plastic surgeons, but many Korean citizens also share this pride associated with Korea’s advanced beauty practices. In a video titled “SOS: Koreans Open Up About Plastic Surgery,” an interviewer asks Koreans on the streets of Seoul what they think about plastic surgery. As one young woman notes, “I heard that foreigners come to Korea just for [plastic surgery]. I believe that it shows Korea’s highly advanced plastic surgery technology compared to that of foreign countries.”[16]
This attitude suggests that plastic surgery and the “Korean look” now serve as marketable commodities that display the technological advancement and progress of an independent Korea as compared to other foreign powers. To this day, discourse on plastic surgery is still rooted in the same “anti-other” sentiment that stems from post-colonial Korea’s search for a sense of national identity. Ironically, because this post-colonial image of beauty has been perpetuated as the new “natural beauty,” plastic surgery then becomes a key factor in obtaining this image of natural beauty. Figure 5, taken from a 2015 study on perceptions of facial beauty by contemporary Koreans, helps to visually illustrate a representation of this kind of beauty. It shows a composite image of the 10 most attractive celebrities’ faces according to 290 South Koreans.[17] Wide, rounded eyes, a petite nose, and a v-shaped face distinguish this image from the image of the Joseon woman shown earlier. Thus, the post-colonial rejection of a traditional Asian face and the mobilization of Western features has carried over into contemporary perceptions of Korean beauty. Not only does contemporary discourse situate Korea’s plastic surgery technology as a symbol of nationalistic pride and advancement over other countries, but the contemporary perception of beauty itself is still rooted in a historical “anti-other” sentiment that has attempted to construct the Korean identity as distinctly Korean. Ultimately, this sentiment continues to pervade beauty standards for contemporary Korean women and is manifested through the desired Korean face; this perception of beauty is then preserved through the use of plastic surgery, where today an estimated 15 to 30% of Korean women have undergone a cosmetic procedure.[18] Additionally, this continued desire to conform to beauty standards ties deeply into aspects of traditional Korean culture that permeate a modern Korea.
Factors in the Current Perpetuation of Beauty Standards and Plastic Surgery for South Korean Women Today
The continued perpetuation of the “Korean Look” in South Korea ultimately ties into lingering Neo-Confucian and collectivist attitudes as well as the growth of Korea’s competitive economy. Like many other East Asian nations, Korea has followed Neo-Confucian ideology throughout its pre-colonial history. Moreover, Koreans largely reembraced Neo-Confucianism in their search for a postwar national identity, as it became representative of “Koreanness” in the reconstruction of South Korea.[19] For Neo-Confucian ideology, the female body is “subjectless” and valued as a vessel for reproduction; the protection and concealment of these vessels then render female bodies “invisible.”[20] For instance, women’s clothing in the Joseon era, as seen in figure 6, was meant to hide the female figure from the public gaze with multiple layers of garments and veils.[21] This control over the “subjectless” woman and her body constitute a repression of female individuality and an emphasis on conformity, collectivism, and obedience within society.
This collectivist sentiment, where the prosperity of the group is valued more than the individual, still lingers more broadly within modern Korean culture today. Collectivism is even ingrained in the Korean language itself; the pronoun “our” (우리) is often used in place of “my” when talking about one’s possessions. For instance, to say “my family” the words “our family” are used instead (우리 가족). But to Westerners, where a culture of individualism is valued, criticism towards South Korea’s plastic surgery practices often implicitly references Korean collectivism: like one article remarks, “While in the U.S., beauty comes in all shapes and sizes, in Seoul, it’s one size only.”[22] Evidently, differing environments and cultural attitudes influence certain perceptions of beauty standards, which indicates why a Western perspective often lends to quick criticism of Korean beauty practices. However, before discussing or criticizing these practices it is imperative that these differing cultural attitudes are addressed and taken into account.
Neo-Confucian and collectivist attitudes, where the “unity of the whole is more important than the individuality of the one,” perpetuate a culture of conformity for South Korean women today when it comes to beauty.[23] Although feminist ideas of female independence and self-expression have begun to take root in modern Korea, the underlying influence of Neo-Confucianism still emphasizes the value of conformity over individuality. Even among parents and guardians, plastic surgery for young women and girls is generally accepted, indicating the underlying belief that conformity is valuable. It has become common and almost a “rite of passage” for Korean high school students today to receive blepharoplasties as graduation gifts from family members; in fact, high school students constitute up to about 70% of plastic surgery patients.[24] To many, the fact that parents or family could encourage plastic surgery seems shocking; but in the context of Neo-Confucianism and collectivism, appealing to the desires of society or the larger group is a historically ingrained belief that helps explain the general positive disposition among Koreans towards plastic surgery today. In addition, these collectivist attitudes work in conjunction with today’s modern media, and this maintains an ideal standard of beauty and an adherence to this standard.
The role of media and celebrities in the contemporary era have exacerbated the normalization of plastic surgery and the conformity to certain beauty standards. South Korea has been known as one of the “best-connected countries in the world,” with the internet usage rate at about 91.6% in 2018 and internet users between the ages of 20 and 29 reporting that they spend about 24.2 hours per week online.[25] With such high Internet usage, online advertisements and mass media gain a wide viewership, and these sorts of platforms often feature images of famous celebrities or models. A survey of 290 young South Korean men and women cited Kim TaeHee, a famous Korean actress, as the most attractive female celebrity.[26] Figure 7 shows an image of Kim TaeHee in a cosmetics company advertisement.[27] She embodies the distinct “Korean look” as explored earlier; wide eyes, a slim face, and a defined nose are molded to Korean features, producing neither a strictly “Oriental” nor a “Western” face. Her beauty is often praised in the media, and plastic surgeon Kwon Seung-taik claims that “Kim Tae-hee’s features are the ones that are requested the most often by patients from all over the world.”[28] Female celebrities in Korea are often held as ideals of beauty; and in a collectivist culture, striving for beauty means to conform to this ideal. Celebrities in the context of Korean collectivist culture perpetuate the postcolonial “Korean look” today through their influence and prevalence in the media. Thus, as images of beauty circulate online, collectivist attitudes popularize and encourage conformity to these beauty standards, exhibiting the continued engagement of cultural traditions within a modern and advanced society.
Collectivist and Neo-Confucianist values influence the normalization and perpetuation of the “Korean Look” and plastic surgery today, but socioeconomic factors also play an extensive role in the modern popularity of plastic surgery. Conforming to accepted ideals of attractiveness is perceived to increase success in social and economic endeavours. A survey of 103 South Koreans discovered that “external appearance is considered as an important factor for relationships and achievements… Many interviewees believed that physical attractiveness correlated directly to popularity in social settings.”[29] Furthermore, attractiveness was thought to benefit an individual in search of a job: “all interviewees agreed that ‘good looking’ people are favored in the employment process.”[30] This sentiment is further confirmed by multiple Koreans who were interviewed by Stephen Park, founder of the popular YouTube channel “Asian Boss.” As one woman comments, “people get plastic surgery to get jobs as well… the first thing the companies look at is photos attached to the resumes”[31] (see Figure 8). One survey of Koreans even found negative stereotypes such as “lazy,” “anti-social,” and “incompetent” to be implicitly linked to unattractive people, indicating that one’s appearance may indeed largely contribute to success in the job market.[32]
This connection between appearance and character ties back to Korea’s culture, specifically the tradition of physiognomy, where facial features are thought to be linked to one’s fortune or character. A 2001 survey administered to Korean men and women aged 10-59 found that 51.8% of participants believed in physiognomy.[33] Physiognomy ties back to the famous historical story of 20th century President Chun Doo Hwan’s mother, who smashed her teeth with a rock after a wandering monk told her she would have a successful son if only her teeth were less protruding.[34]
For many Koreans, appearance is not just relevant to the physical body but also implicates certain aspects of character or fortune. In striving for social and economic success, the desire to appeal to an ideal standard of beauty runs deeper than just wanting aesthetic beauty; it also denotes the desire to strengthen perceptions of one’s character or personality. Plastic surgery, then, does not merely change one’s face but also changes the connotations and assumptions associated with one’s character. Thus, in the highly competitive Korean economy, conforming to accepted beauty ideals and marketing one’s appearance can prove to be highly advantageous. On one hand, for Korean women today, plastic surgery reinforces the Neo-Confucian oppression of women as “subjectless,” reducing the female to her body and physical appearance. But on the other hand, women can now utilize plastic surgery as a mode of agency over one’s appearance, mobility, and success, gaining a newfound sense of confidence and identity in the process. Ultimately, remnants of traditional Korean culture such as Neo-Confucianism and physiognomy still permeate a rapidly modernizing Korea, placing women in a unique and complex environment today when it comes to self-expression and beauty.
Concluding Remarks
In this essay, I have attempted to explore the historical and cultural intricacies surrounding South Korea’s plastic surgery phenomenon. Typical discourse has debated on whether plastic surgery practices among young Korean women should be condoned or condemned, but these conversations have not necessarily investigated the complexities surrounding the issue. As a nation with a history pervaded by the influence of foreign powers, Korea’s search for an independent national identity has fundamentally been situated in an “anti-other” sentiment, and this has carried over into beauty standards for Korean women. Furthermore, unique cultural factors such as Neo-Confucianism, collectivism, and physiognomy perpetuate this beauty ideal in the context of a modern Korea. Contemporary criticism has largely been ignorant of Korea’s history and culture in relation to beauty.
Equipping this knowledge of South Korea’s distinct background sets the stage for more credible and informative debates and expresses an understanding of differing cultural perspectives. In today’s highly globalized society, this understanding is crucial as we become exposed to nations with a culture and history unlike our own. In order to properly explore the complexities of beauty, we must dismantle the confinement of beauty to merely contemporary aesthetic trends and shallowness. Oftentimes, explorations of beauty reveal unique historical and cultural implications. With this thought in mind, we can equip a new and powerful perspective that opens avenues for deeper and more fruitful conversations. Through this, we become scholars and commentators who can go beyond the confines of our predisposed notions and probe beneath the surface to uncover new layers of discussion.
Sophie Jin is a second-year undergraduate student at Stanford University, majoring in Philosophy. This paper was written with the help of Professor Yanshuo Zhang in the class Writing & Rhetoric 1: In the Eyes of Different Beholders: Rhetoric of Beauty across Cultures.
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1. Thevnee Sasanka, comment on “We Asked The Women of Korea about Plastic Surgery,” Youtube (video), May 3, 2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lewUo4ThvZg&t=82s.
2. Famia Fozan, comment on “We Asked The Women of Korea.”
3. Xin Liu, Shiguang Shan, and Xilin Chen, “Face Recognition after Plastic Surgery: A Comprehensive Study,” in Computer Vision – ACCV 2012, ed. Kyoung Mu Lee et al., vol. 7725, Lecture Notes in Computer Science (Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer Berlin Heidelberg, 2013): 565, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-37444-9_44.
4. Carter J. Eckert and Ki-baek Yi, eds., Korea, Old and New: A History (Seoul, Korea: Cambridge, Mass: Published for the Korea Institute, Harvard University by Ilchokak; Distributed by Harvard University Press, 1990): 254.
5. D.R. Millard, jr., “Oriental Peregrinations,” Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery 16, no. 5 (November 1955): 331. (Warning: article contains graphic images.)
6. D.R. Millard jr., “Oriental Peregrinations,” 333.
7. D.R. Millard, jr., “Oriental Peregrinations,” 332; Grand Plastic Surgery, “Double Eyelid Surgery,” accessed September 10, 2020, https://eng.grandsurgery.com/eye/double-eyelid-surgery.php.
8. Daniel Schwekendiek, Minhee Yeo, and Stanley Ulijaszek, “On Slimming Pills, Growth Hormones, and Plastic Surgery,” in When Culture Impacts Health (Elsevier, 2013): 144, https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-415921-1.00013-0.
9. Noh Jong Hoon Plastic Surgery, “V-Line,” accessed May 25, 2020, www.jpmakeface.com/sub/sub02_02.php.
10. Unidentified artist, Portrait of a Woman, 1392-1910, ink and color on silk, 85.7 x 52.1 cm, https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/54915.
11. Schwekendiek et. al, “On Slimming Pills,” 143-44.
12. Ruth Holliday and Joanna Elfving-Hwang, “Gender, Globalization and Aesthetic Surgery in South Korea,” Body & Society 18, no. 2 (June 2012): 69-70, https://doi.org/10.1177/1357034X12440828.
13. Holliday and Elfving-Hwang, “Gender, Globalization and Aesthetic Surgery,” 69
14. Ruth Holliday et al., “Trading Faces: The ‘Korean Look’ and Medical Nationalism in South Korean Cosmetic Surgery Tourism: Trading Faces,” Asia Pacific Viewpoint 58, no. 2 (August 2017): 193, https://doi.org/10.1111/apv.12154.
15. Dr. Phi qtd. in Ruth Holliday et. al “Trading Faces,” 193.
16. Eun-hee Lee, interview by meejmuse in “SOS: Koreans Open Up About Plastic Surgery,” video, October 16, 2015, 11:35-11:40, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OZ3vRIve1Q&t=680s.
17. Seung Chul Rhee, Soo-Jung An, and Rahil Hwang, “Contemporary Koreans’ Perceptions of Facial Beauty,” Archives of Plastic Surgery 44, no. 5 (September 15, 2017): 395, https://doi.org/10.5999/aps.2017.44.5.390.
18. Liu, Shan, and Chen, “Face Recognition,” 565.
19. Taeyon Kim, “Neo-Confucian Body Techniques: Women’s Bodies in Korea’s Consumer Society,” Body & Society 9, no. 2 (June 2003): 102, https://doi.org/10.1177/1357034X030092005.
20. Taeyon Kim, “Neo-Confucian Body Techniques,” 101.
21. Hyewon (Shin Yun Bok), Biguni (A Buddhist Nun) Greeting a Kisaeng, 1758-early 19th century, http://kang.chungbuk.ac.kr/art_kor/151606.
22. David Yi, “Seoul’s Top Plastic Surgeon Had Many Suggestions for Enhancing My Face,” Very Good Light, January 20, 2018, www.verygoodlight.com/2018/01/10/seouls-top-plastic-surgeon-had-many-suggestions-for-enhancing-my-face/.
23. Taeyon Kim, “Neo-Confucian Body Techniques,”106.
24. Taeyon Kim, 105.
25. Statista Research Department, “Internet Usage in South Korea- Statistics & Facts,” Statista, January 16, 2020, www.statista.com/topics/2230/internet-usage-in-south-korea/.
26. Rhee, An, and Hwang, “Contemporary Koreans’ Perceptions of Facial Beauty.” 393.
27. O HUI Cosmetics, “Gallery,” 2014, accessed May 29, 2020, http://www.ohui.co.kr/.
28. Kwon Seung-taik, qtd. in VIolet Kim, “Welcome to the Plastic Surgery Capital of the World,” CNN, August 9, 2012, www.travel.cnn.com/seoul/visit/ideals-beauty-plastic-surgery-capital-world-389581/.
29. Rachel H. Park, Howard L. Langstein, and Paige L. Myers, “Beliefs and Trends of Aesthetic Surgery in South Korean Young Adults,” Archives of Plastic Surgery 46, no. 6 (November 15, 2019): 613, https://doi.org/10.5999/aps.2018.01172.
30. Park, Langstein, and Myers, “Beliefs and Trends,” 614
31. Interview by Stephen Park, “Why Do The Koreans get Plastic Surgery,” video, May 13, 2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMRsdpNnojc&t=183s., 2:59-3:06
32. Park, Langstein, and Myers, 613.
33. Andrew Eungi Kim, “Nonofficial Religion in South Korea: Prevalence of Fortunetelling and Other Forms of Divination,” Review of Religious Research 46, no. 3 (March 2005): 284, https://doi.org/10.2307/3512557.
34. Holliday and Elfving-Hwang, “Gender, Globalization, and Aesthetic Surgery,” 69-70.
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