Kim Ji-soo joined The Korea Times in 2006, and worked on such desks as culture and politics and is currently a member of the Editorial Board. Previous workplaces include The Korea Herald and the Korea JoongAng Daily.
Should looks matter?
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By Kim Ji-soo
By Park Moo-jong
There is an old saying that beauty and luck seldom go hand in hand. In short, the beautiful die young.
No one can deny that women want to be beautiful, despite the old saying.
Naturally, beauty is a gift.
That is not necessarily the case today, however.
Today, beauty can be created artificially through medical procedures.
It is not too much to say that we are living in an era of surgical beauty.
A craze is sweeping not only women, but men who aspire to look better through plastic surgery in a society where appearance appears to be a major factor in surviving in the face of ever-intensifying competition.
The Washington Post recently carried a special report about the plastic surgery boom in South Korea.
The U.S. daily report said: “After the Korean War, the country’s GDP per capita ($64) was less than that of Somalia, and its citizens lived under an oppressive regime. Today, South Korea has the 14th-highest GDP in the world. Is it really surprising, then, that a country that had the resilience to make itself over so thoroughly is also the capital of cosmetic about-faces?”
According to an English dictionary, plastic surgery is a medical specialty concerned with the correction or restoration of the form and function of the body.
But actually, the concept of plastic surgery today is mainly to improve looks.
Various surveys show that prospective patients want to look better to find jobs, to attract a spouse or to regain self-confidence.
When it comes to plastic surgery, the 1997 box-office hit “Face/Off” is a striking example. John Travolta, a relentless FBI agent, undergoes a radical surgical procedure to borrow the face and identity of Nicolas Cage, a sadistic terrorist-for-hire, to carry out his mission. But things go awry when Cage, emerging from a coma, takes the face of Travolta and wreaks havoc upon his life, both at work and at home.
Borrowing another person’s face was possible in a movie about two decades ago. But the brilliant development of cosmetic surgery skills can transform an ugly woman into a beauty overnight as proved by many TV reality shows.
Indeed, the desire to become pretty has no bounds. People that had parts of their body corrected used to conceal that fact in the past, but that is no longer the case these days.
Nearly 70 percent of Korean women between 13 and 45 have a firm belief that success or failure greatly depends on their appearance, and makeup is indispensable to their lives.
In particular, women between the ages of 25 and 35 regard their appearance as a decisive means of enhancing their social lives and want to make their looks better through physical fitness, skin care, plastic surgery or dieting.
It is not surprising that more than half of high school girls and boys want plastic surgery to look better. Most of their parents are also willing to spend money, if they can.
Who can stop the desire to look better in order to live with self-confidence, without suffering from an appearance complex?
With millions of cosmetic procedures performed each year, South Korea 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.
Undoubtedly, looks do matter in this society.
That reality does not allow anyone to blame those who undergo surgery to look better.
Frankly speaking, those with better appearances can find jobs more easily and are treated better.
Thousands of surgery clinics pump out somewhat standardized products. In other words, man-made beauties look similar.
It is not that difficult these days to find pretty women with similar and standardized looks — high noses, big eyes, slim bodies — on the street.
A useless worry may be the birth of babies that do not resemble their mothers. The parentage, or DNA, test, has already become popular unfortunately.
Perhaps people may be sick of the similar looks on the street or on television, if there is a new social sense of value. Women with natural Korean eyes and round faces may suddenly look better.
The influence of media, especially TV, and the social trend of valuing women not for their ability, but for their appearance, must be the prime reason why the nation’s plastic surgeons enjoy good livings.
Which is more precious, attempting to be superior to others by easily changing one’s looks with the help of medical techniques or striving to raise one’s value through diverse efforts while maintaining one’s originality?
We know well that external beauty is temporary, as proved by aging.
Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) wrote in his 1903 play, “Man and Superman”: “Beauty is all very well at first sight, but who ever looks at it when it has been in the house three days.”
The writer is The Korea Times advisor. He had served as president-publisher of the paper from 2004 to 2010 after having worked as a reporter for 31 years since 1974. He can be reached at moojong@ktimes.co.kr.