Monkey see, Monkey do

Seoul
A City of the Wannabe Apes
March 5, 2003

**The author has been on the road from the obscenely affluent communities to the ghettoized urbanities in Asia (Osaka, Seoul, Hongkong, Macao, and Manila City), tasting amply the brutal aspect of the economic globalization and the environmental degradation that affected millions lives of the Joe Blows in the region, where the ant-like people were happily enslaved by their desire to own a Cadillac.

“Monkey see, Monkey do.”

This was my first thought about the people, mostly young people, in Seoul, South Korea, when I landed at the Inchon airport from Osaka, Japan, and sadly, it never ceased to remind me of them again, aping days and nights, until I left for Manila after a week stay
I used to think that only a suckling baby grows by seeing and emulating it.
Not anymore!

I found so many wannabe apes in Seoul, in the streets, shops, markets, schools, offices, restaurants, factories, soap operas, music concerts, movie theatres, everywhere, and I saw grandma apes too.
As an adage said that “beauty is in the eye of beholder”, a Caucasian-look-a-like is more eye-popping figure than a Chink-a-like to the Korean point of beauty.
Therefore, all rush to the plastic surgery for aping a white Caucasian.

I became dumbfounded when I saw the huge plastic billboard of an advertisement in uptown Seoul by a plastic surgeon who suggests that he could chisel out a portion of excessive cheekbones from the woman’s round and flat face in the face-lift operation as if a sculptor carves off the excessive part of his figurines, and transform her into an instant look-a-like Caucasian woman.

The Korean women appear to be deeply ashamed and dreadful of their physical formation: a pair of slit eyes, a low-bridged nose, small and thin lips, two protruded cheek bones on the flat face, two short and dumpy legs, and they spend millions of dollars for the plastic surgery, cutting, slicing, raising, implanting, or piercing their physical parts and even dying their pubic hairs in golden colors to impress their sexual partners.

Again, I gaped in disbelief on the Korean ambivalence and contradiction: the young Koreans shout all the shibboleths, “Yankee Go Home”, “Abolish the SOA”, “Americans, the Murderers”, at the candle-light demonstration for the two dead schoolgirls, while, furtively, they opt for having their new-born babies delivered in LA Hospital for the US birth certificates.

They applaud loudly at the music concert when the Korean Hiphop singers whose face and body were painted black gyrate on the stage like a pack of monkeys, while they look down on the black GIs and dark-skinned travelers as Niggers.

They love to see the cowboy and Rambo movies subtitled in their mother tongue, oblivious of the scenarios that depict mostly the slit-eyed American-Indians and Chinks the evil character.
They appear to have the split personality that is familiar with the people who have been enslaved by the masters, as in the third world countries, like in the Philippines,

One of puzzling phenomena, unlike the Filipinos, is that the Korean people’s deficiency in English language does never discourage them to emulate and adopt the American culture in physical fashion.
Obviously, they just want to ape becoming ”look-a-like” Caucasians who speak, behave, think, and live a Korean, considering the fact that no foreign culture could be understood or absorbed within the intelligence of people without the proper facility in the language that they are foreign to.

At the huge mall in the downtown book store, few people were seen at the Foreign Language corner where a lot of “how to” books occupy the shelves, that promise the readers as easy and fast learning as if they gobble up greasy hamburgers at McDonald’s.

On the bustling subway train where pushings and shovings are normal and accepted form of courtesy, I’ve never seen any rider, sitting or standing, young or old, reading a book, any book (let alone an English book), but most of them were like zombies in the arms of Mopheus. (Perhaps they were, like Descartes, in Cogito ergo sum, uh?)

Entering the trendy department store at the downtown Seoul, you have become easily confused whether you were in Sachs or Bloomingdale’s in Manhattan, New York City because all the mannequins on the display were Caucasians, in figure, complexion, and attires in toto.
Visualize or imagine a bow-legged and dumpy Korean girl fancies about her in those mannequin and dreams about becoming a Caucasian woman!

I have met a gaggle of high school lasses on the train and struck a casual conversation in English.
First, they blushed, mumbled, then babbled, and finally escaped through a mob of passengers, because they were not able to answer my simple query “how do I get to the City Hall?” in English.

Amazingly, they, apparently, were all going ape, at any cost, over becoming the look-a-like Caucasians… one of them wore a trendy sportswear and the high-priced boots, and others painted their flat face with thick make-up fit for the nightclub bargirls.
A majority of them appears to have their pair of eyes surgically aligned to eliminate the Mongolian fold and all of them had their hairs tinted with the hues of rainbow.

I wonder whether the Korean women realize the sad part on the aping by scalpel lasts only one generation…their babies require the doctor’s scalpel for generation repeatedly, because their parents hate to look at the Chink-like babies.
What if the future geneticists were able to manipulate the hereditary blueprint within the Korean chromosomes by zapping all Chink DNA out of the Korean blood and implant them with the Caucasian genome?
Would they mob the doctor’s office for the gene exchange?

I surely bet my ass they would do, as monkey see, monkey do.


Home> National/Politics Updated Feb.4,2005 17:30 KST




BBC Homes in on Korea's Plastic Surgery Craze


The BBC's online edition gave a detailed account Friday of the plastic surgery craze gripping young Korea.
In a feature entitled “The price of beauty in South Korea,” BBC Online said that while first-time visitors to the country are unlikely to be thrilled by the country's featureless concrete buildings, the beauty of Korea's young women captures them.

It said that despite sub-zero winter weather, Seoul was full of young women smartly dressed in miniskirts, and that women of marriageable age were caught in an obsession with looking their best. As a result, there has been an explosive increase in plastic surgery, the broadcaster said.

It said one women's magazine advised its readers to spend 30 percent of their income on looking good, claiming it was a wise investment since it would help them ensnare wealthier husbands.

It said the craze found expression in the "ul-jjang" and "mom-jjang" cultures -- i.e. "best face" and "best body" - and that even by conservative estimates, half of Korean women in their 20s have received cosmetic surgery of one form or the other, while 70 percent of Korean men are considering going under the knife.

The broadcaster reported that there was no shame or stigma attached to plastic surgery, while the procedures themselves have come to be regarded as commonplace.

The BBC said that with the "looking good" craze increasing in magnitude, there were no more than 1,200 officially licensed plastic surgeons in the country, while thousands more were operating illegal practices.

One surgeon told the BBC he knew of psychiatrists doing liposuctions and radiologists doing double eyelid operations -- with predictable results.

The broadcaster added that cosmetic surgeons quietly talked of examples of botched nose jobs, damaged faces and women who cannot close their eyes because plastic surgeons cut away too much skin from their eyelids.

(englishnews@chosun.com )


The price of beauty in South Korea

By Charles Scanlon BBC News, South Korea

The South Korean capital, Seoul, has a reputation as the place to go for a nip or a tuck. But despite being an unregulated industry, thousands seem willing to risk injury in pursuit of a perfect body.

Even the most ardent patriot would not describe South Korean cities as beautiful.
A dreary expanse of undistinguished concrete blocks does little to inspire the first time visitor.
But all is not lost for those on the look out for aesthetic attractions.



South Korea is in the grip of a beauty craze

South Korean women have a reputation as the most striking in Asia.
And the men are also shaping up. Korean actors are currently the region's premier heartthrobs.
The Korean look, with high cheekbones and sculptured features is all the rage from Shanghai to Singapore.
South Korea is in the grip of a beauty craze.

Investment

The streets of Seoul are thick with impeccably groomed young women in miniskirts, seemingly immune to the sub zero temperatures of the Korean winter.
Women of marriageable age are under intense pressure to look their best at all times and one of the consequences has been an explosion in plastic surgery.
A woman's magazine recently advised its readers to spend 30% of their incomes on looking good.
The reason, you will end up with a better and richer husband and that has to be a sensible investment.

Envy

The buzzword these days is ul-jjang, literally "best face".
Women and some men as well, send posed photographs to websites, where they can be ranked on their looks.


By conservative estimates, 50% of South Korean women in their 20s have had some form of cosmetic surgery

The winners aspire to jobs in modeling and acting.
That spirit of competition is keeping the country's thousands of plastic surgeons hard at work.
It is no longer enough just to correct perceived flaws. The trick these days is to stand out from the crowd and be the envy of your friends.
By conservative estimates, 50% of South Korean women in their 20s have had some form of cosmetic surgery. And in a recent poll, 70% of men said they would also consider surgical improvements.
There is little stigma or shame attached, many of the operations have come to seem routine.

Implants

Kim Hee-soon is fairly typical. An impossibly slender 28-year-old shipping clerk.
She began with a double eyelid operation when she went to university. It is the most common procedure for Koreans, designed to make the eyes look bigger.
Pleased with the result she went back later to ask for a more statuesque nose.


It is a highly lucrative business and everyone wants a slice of the action

But the surgeon had a suggestion of his own, an operation to make her chin more shapely and cutting from inside the mouth he inserted an implant.
Three years later, she still feels pain and discomfort, especially when the weather is cold.
But despite the experience she is now considering breast implant.
That surgeon, like so many others practicing here, turned out to be unqualified for the job, but he aggressively denied anything was wrong with his handiwork.

Disfigurement

South Korea has just 1,200 certified plastic surgeons. Many thousands of others are operating without proper qualifications.
It is a highly lucrative business and everyone wants a slice of the action.
One qualified surgeon told me he knew of psychiatrists doing liposuction and radiologists performing double eyelid operations.
The results are predictable enough.



For those who want an even cheaper job, there is always the massage woman at the local sauna who is handy with the botox injection and the scalpel
Cosmetic surgeons tell hushed stories of botched noses, damaged faces and women who cannot close their eyes at all after too much of the lid is cut away.
Some of the practitioners have no grasp of basic surgery. Patients asking for liposuction are literally risking their lives on the operating table.
Qualified operators say their old classmates from med school constantly badger them for lessons on lucrative cosmetic operations.
The result has been a dramatic drop in the price of plastic surgery, making it available to all. A second eyelid for the price of a night out.
And for those who want an even cheaper job, there is always the massage woman at the local sauna who is handy with the botox injection and the scalpel.
Amazingly, malpractice suits are few and far between, and the damages paid to victims are derisory by international standards.
Most complaints are settled quietly out of court in deals brokered by the consumer association.
The certified plastic surgeons are pushing for tougher regulation and more accountability, but they are up against a powerful lobby of doctors who fight any restrictions on the right to practice.

Secret filming

Until recently, the media has shown little interest in investigating the abuses.
But in one recent case, an undercover TV crew filmed a liposuction operation at the surgery of a gynecologist.
The operation was performed by the salesman from the company that sold the machine. At one point he invited the gynaecologist to hold the suction tube, to groans of pain from the unfortunate patient.
The government seems more interested in keeping the doctors happy than in protecting the public as a whole.
And in the frenzy to look their best South Korean women, as well as increasing numbers of men, are still prepared to take the risk.