By Chyung Eun-ju
Everyone but you has done it" says an ad in one of hundreds of clinics clustered in Gangnam, the hip southern Seoul district, encouraging the viewers to get plastic surgery.
The subliminal message captures Korea's groupthink: You should do it or be ostracized.
By some estimates, the country has the highest rate of plastic surgery per capita in the world.
The fetishizing of plastic surgery began in the aftermath of the Korean War, when the American occupational forces offered free reconstructive surgery to injured war victims. The chief of plastic surgery for the U.S. Marine Corps, David Ralph Millard, perfected blepharoplasty for Koreans who wanted to change the monolid eyes to Western ones. This procedure caught on fast, and Millard wrote in his monograph, "It was indeed a plastic surgeon's paradise."
But the real underlying problem is not the soaring number of people who undergo cosmetic surgery _ it is the groupthink ethic. Michael Breen states in his book, The New Koreans, "…the priority is very much on what others think, the struggle is not to accept themselves… so much as to align themselves with the idea that others have of them."
In Korea you will hear a lot of woori. It means "us" or "we" emphasizing the importance of belonging to a collective. With deep Confucian foundations, it is a very conformist society. Therefore, when it comes to appearances, not looking like the norm becomes a complex for an individual.
The beauty standard is quite singular, and the pressure to be part of this certain mainstream beauty trend is prevalent.
During The Korea Times Roundtable held on June 20, Andrew Salmon shared his story about posting a picture of his daughter on social media, and his daughter reacted in outrage because her classmates had shared the photo that she thought she did not look good in. Andrew said he thought she looked beautiful in the photo and did not understand the outrage.
And it makes us reflect on how we put so much importance on what people think of us and how we take actions to please others rather than ourselves.
A freshman at Seoul National University said, "Before you come to college, you should at least get some procedure done. All your friends are doing it, so if you don't do it, you will be the ugly person in the group. I did not want to do it at first, but my parents said I would have trouble getting a job."
Plastic surgery is popular all around the world, and it's not just a Korea problem. The problem is the uniform beauty standard and the motive behind cosmetic surgery. The fundamental obsession with the public opinion is something we must strive to break away from, because it is a form of tyranny.
The writer lived in Brazil for 18 years and studied at Graded School. She currently studies at Seoul National University and works at Arirang TV. Her email address is: elainechyung@gmail.com.
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The subliminal message captures Korea's groupthink: You should do it or be ostracized.
By some estimates, the country has the highest rate of plastic surgery per capita in the world.
The fetishizing of plastic surgery began in the aftermath of the Korean War, when the American occupational forces offered free reconstructive surgery to injured war victims. The chief of plastic surgery for the U.S. Marine Corps, David Ralph Millard, perfected blepharoplasty for Koreans who wanted to change the monolid eyes to Western ones. This procedure caught on fast, and Millard wrote in his monograph, "It was indeed a plastic surgeon's paradise."
But the real underlying problem is not the soaring number of people who undergo cosmetic surgery _ it is the groupthink ethic. Michael Breen states in his book, The New Koreans, "…the priority is very much on what others think, the struggle is not to accept themselves… so much as to align themselves with the idea that others have of them."
In Korea you will hear a lot of woori. It means "us" or "we" emphasizing the importance of belonging to a collective. With deep Confucian foundations, it is a very conformist society. Therefore, when it comes to appearances, not looking like the norm becomes a complex for an individual.
The beauty standard is quite singular, and the pressure to be part of this certain mainstream beauty trend is prevalent.
During The Korea Times Roundtable held on June 20, Andrew Salmon shared his story about posting a picture of his daughter on social media, and his daughter reacted in outrage because her classmates had shared the photo that she thought she did not look good in. Andrew said he thought she looked beautiful in the photo and did not understand the outrage.
And it makes us reflect on how we put so much importance on what people think of us and how we take actions to please others rather than ourselves.
A freshman at Seoul National University said, "Before you come to college, you should at least get some procedure done. All your friends are doing it, so if you don't do it, you will be the ugly person in the group. I did not want to do it at first, but my parents said I would have trouble getting a job."
Plastic surgery is popular all around the world, and it's not just a Korea problem. The problem is the uniform beauty standard and the motive behind cosmetic surgery. The fundamental obsession with the public opinion is something we must strive to break away from, because it is a form of tyranny.
The writer lived in Brazil for 18 years and studied at Graded School. She currently studies at Seoul National University and works at Arirang TV. Her email address is: elainechyung@gmail.com.
