Korean People = Star Bellied Sneetches

Article #1 on Korean Culture

If you have no idea what a Sneetch is then I suggest you read this quickly.

There is a strange trend here in Korea.... actually there are about 10,000 strange trends here in Korea. I'm not really sure why so many people try so hard to keep up with trends, but that is an insane amount of competition here, so that may be the reason.

Anyway, one trend that shocked me the most is the plastic surgery trend. Almost half (at least this is what I am told) of Korean women get their eyelids fixed. Of course I live in the most expensive part of Seoul, so perhaps this is only true here. If you don't know what I am talking about read this.
So, only 75% of Koreans are born with this eyelid crease, but I cant belive that since almost all of my female students have an eyelid crease. I have no idea whose is natural and whose is fixed. I was told by a student that I shouldn't ask a woman if she has had the surgery done. They tend to be self conscious about it. Apparently anytime you see a woman walking around with big dark sunglasses on, it typically means she recently had the surgery. Another common site is women with doctors masks on. I originally thought they wore these because they were sick and didn't want to spread their cold to others. It seems more often the reason is a recent nose, chin, or lip job. Of course if the person is riding a motorbike in the street they are doing it for health reasons. But if you look closely to someone with one of the masks on you can see the bandages underneath.

This is an incredibly high fashion area, women and men wear some of the strangest things. I think I'm going to pretend to be a crazy Japanese tourist for a day and just take pictures of everyone. I am bound to get some of the interesting looking people.

So, the reason I think Koreans are just like the Star Bellied Sneetches is because they want to look like some ideal that without surgery would be impossible, so they pay a ton of money for it and in the end I think only the surgeon wins. One day when all the women have the eyelid crease then women are going to start getting the crease removed. And I always thought American men though Asian womens eyes were exotic and sexy... I wonder why they would want to change it!

To each his own, but I think people are beautiful because they are different. However, if this surgery makes women happy then I would not wish to deny it to them. I just wonder if they really want it, of if they feel compelled to get it.