{"id":48709,"date":"2016-08-17T02:16:25","date_gmt":"2016-08-17T02:16:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=48709"},"modified":"2016-08-17T03:05:12","modified_gmt":"2016-08-17T03:05:12","slug":"eyes-wide-cut-the-american-origins-of-koreas-plastic-surgery-craze","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=48709","title":{"rendered":"Eyes Wide Cut: The American Origins of Korea\u2019s Plastic Surgery Craze"},"content":{"rendered":"

Eyes Wide Cut: The American Origins of Korea\u2019s Plastic Surgery Craze<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

The Wilson Quarterly<\/a>
\nFall 2015<\/p>\n

Laura Kurek<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

South Korea’s<\/a> obsession with cosmetic surgery can be traced back to an American doctor, raising uneasy questions about beauty standards.<\/em><\/p>\n

At sixteen stories high, the doctor\u2019s office looms over the neon-colored metropolis. Within the high-rise, consultation offices, operating rooms, and recovery suites occupy most floors. Additional floors house a dental clinic, a rooftop lounge, and apartments for long-term stays. This is Beauty Korea (BK)<\/a>, a one-stop, full-service plastic surgery facility in the heart of Seoul, South Korea<\/a>.<\/p>\n

South Korea has an obsession with plastic surgery. One in five South Korean women<\/a> has undergone some type of cosmetic procedure, compared with one in twenty in the United States. With plastic surgery\u2019s staggering rise in popularity, an attractive physical appearance is now the sine qua non<\/em><\/a> for a successful career. Undergoing surgery to achieve an employable face in South Korea is just as commonplace as going to the gym in America.<\/p>\n

The most popular surgery is Asian blepharoplasty<\/a>, the process of changing the Asian eyelid, commonly referred to as the \u201cmonolid,\u201d into a double eyelid. The second is rhinoplasty, or a nose job. The prevalence of these two procedures, especially the \u201cdouble-eyelid\u201d operation, has led to a delicate question: Are South Koreans are seeking to westernize their appearance? Cosmetic surgeons and scholars tread lightly around the issue. Some argue that Western culture \u2014 a broad and imperfect term \u2014 cannot claim \u201cbig eyes\u201d as unique to its definition of beauty. Others note that only 50 percent<\/a> of the Asian population is born with monolids. Some practitioners, including Dr. Hyuenong Park<\/a> of OZ Cosmetic Clinic and Beverly Hills<\/a> plastic surgeon Kenneth Steinsapir<\/a>, deny altogether that double-eyelid surgery is intended to make its recipient appear more Western.<\/p>\n

The story of an American surgeon in the postwar Korea of the 1950s, however, suggests otherwise…<\/p>\n

Read the entire article here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Eyes Wide Cut: The American Origins of Korea\u2019s Plastic Surgery Craze The Wilson Quarterly Fall 2015 Laura Kurek South Korea’s obsession with cosmetic surgery can be traced back to an American doctor, raising uneasy questions about beauty standards. At sixteen stories high, the doctor\u2019s office looms over the neon-colored metropolis. Within the high-rise, consultation offices, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,16,2039,459,8,20,25],"tags":[24785,24783,24786,228,24784,229,20770,20771],"class_list":["post-48709","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-asia","category-health-medicine","category-history","category-media-archive","category-usa","category-women","tag-beauty-korea","tag-blepharoplasty","tag-david-ralph-millard","tag-korea","tag-laura-kurek","tag-south-korea","tag-the-wilson-quarterly","tag-wilson-quarterly"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48709","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=48709"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48709\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48710,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48709\/revisions\/48710"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=48709"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=48709"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=48709"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}