When 21-year-old Michelle returns to university this fall, the math major from western Shanxi province will be sporting a new look, and not just because of her fashionable outfits.<\/p>\n
Her father drove her six hours to Beijing earlier this month to the Qingmu Plastic Surgery Center, where he paid 6,000 yuan ($940) for surgery to give her double-fold eyelids — a common attribute of Westerners that is increasingly popular in China.<\/p>\n
She emerged from the half-hour operation ebullient in her clingy black top and stylish green miniskirt, despite swollen eyes behind oversized sunglasses.<\/p>\n
“I wanted to look and feel better about myself,” said Michelle, who declined to give her surname. “When the swelling goes down in a few days, my eyes will be bigger and more lovely.”<\/p>\n
A generation of Chinese young people is growing up better-looking than their parents, and it’s not just good nutrition.<\/p>\n
Plastic surgery is booming. The number of procedures hit 3 million in 2010, the Ministry of Health said, as the newly rich trade up not only handbags and phones, but also their looks.<\/p>\n
They’re starting early, too.<\/p>\n
Students made up as much as 80 percent of plastic surgery patients in Beijing last summer, according to a study by the China Medical Treatment Orthopedics and Beauty Association.<\/p>\n
“Parents want their daughters to be beautiful so they’ll have an easier time finding a job or a husband,” said Ding Xiaobang, a Beijing plastic surgeon, as he took a breather between consecutive breast augmentation surgeries.<\/p>\n
“They’ll often bring the child to get surgery the summer before college or even high school.”<\/p>\n
China ranked second behind the United States in number of aesthetic surgical procedures performed according to a 2009 survey by the International Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery. But the tastes between the two vary widely.<\/p>\n
In China, the most popular procedures are eye and nose refinements, while the U.S. sees breast augmentation and liposuction at the top, Ding said.<\/p>\n
WEALTH, BEAUTY AND CONFIDENCE<\/p>\n
With rising wealth in China, beauty is increasingly a status symbol, the triumph of money over birth, experts say.<\/p>\n
“This society is brutally practical,” said Li Yinhe, an expert in women’s sociology with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. “Everyone wants to climb to a higher rung of the social ladder, and that includes improving your looks.”<\/p>\n
Li says the strict beauty standard in China puts enormous pressure on women, adding: “In a rational society, everyone should not have to look the same to be beautiful.”<\/p>\n
In a country where job listings routinely include height requirements and ask for photos, it’s no surprise that there is widespread belief that better looks will help a woman get ahead.<\/p>\n
“A diploma is important, but looks are equally important,” the Qingmu center’s website says bluntly.<\/p>\n
The sentiment was echoed by the center’s Director of Operations Qin Lili: “If there’s an ugly girl and a pretty girl, which one do you think will be more accepted by society?”<\/p>\n
Surgeons say many young women opt for plastic surgery right before they begin the job hunt.<\/p>\n
Sandra Zheng, a director at China’s state-run television station CCTV, said she got two injections of hyaluronic acid, or “liquid facelift,” to raise the bridge of her nose last summer after graduating from university.<\/p>\n
“A lot of my friends had gotten similar procedures done, so I think I was influenced by them,” said Zheng, 23. “I got it to improve my self-confidence.”<\/p>\n
PAIN AND DANGER<\/p>\n
But along with beauty comes pain — and danger.<\/p>\n
The boom in plastic surgery has resulted in a mushrooming of unregistered and sometimes unsafe practitioners, which came into the spotlight last November when a contestant on the TV talent show “Super Girl” died during a jaw-slimming operation.<\/p>\n
On a more mundane level, young women risk being stuck with a face they don’t much like even after enduring painful surgery and shelling out a lot of cash.<\/p>\n
One young woman at a Beijing clinic said a surgeon had taken off too much skin from the corners of her eyes, leaving her with a slightly alarmed expression. Another was unhappy that her almond-shaped eyes looked practically the same after a 14,000 yuan operation to widen them.<\/p>\n
In tandem with the popularity of plastic surgery is a surge in the number of lawsuits from unhappy patients. That number has risen to 20,000 a year, and China’s Ministry of Health launched a campaign this year to weed out unregistered centers.<\/p>\n
At the most reputable centers — such as the one Ding works at, which is run by the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences — business still booms. Ding’s center is filled with well-heeled young women any day of the week.<\/p>\n
He says that in summertime more than half are students, which means they have plenty of time to become regular customers, like 29-year-old Li Qing.<\/p>\n
Li, who says she’s spent more than 100,000 on surgery over the years, has a thick file at the clinic and was back to replump her cheeks and nose with hyaluronic acid.<\/p>\n
Even with her face smeared with anesthetic gel before the procedure, Li looks like the ideal Chinese beauty, with large eyes, delicate nose and long and slender limbs.<\/p>\n
But a closer look reveals a bump on the bridge of her nose where too much hyaluronic acid was injected two years ago, and her gently rounded cheeks are surprisingly stiff to the touch.<\/p>\n
“My husband still doesn’t know I’ve done these procedures, because I do them little by little while he’s away on business trips,” she added.<\/p>\n
$1 = 6.394 yuan<\/p>\n
(Reporting by the Beijing newsroom; Editing by Ken Wills and Elaine Lies)<\/p>\n
via reuters<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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