The History Of Cosmetic Surgery In South Korea

Cosmetic surgery is a common topic among people as a way to elevate one 's state of beauty and to relate to the beauty standard that is set for both sexes. In America, people go through cosmetic procedures to satisfy their desire to have certain features that they believe to be beautiful such as bigger breasts, tinier waists, bloated lips, tighter skin, etc. However, this craze is nothing compared to South Korea. According to the Wilson Quarterly, South Korea has "an obsession" with plastic surgery with one in five South Korean women going under some type of cosmetic procedure, compared to the one in twenty people in the United States. This craze is due to the belief that an attractive face is needed for a successful career. The most popular

David Ralph Millard was known to be the "messiah of children all over the world who were born with facial clefts" and is within the top ten "Plastic Surgeons of the Millennium". He 's regarded as the father of modern plastic surgery and was the first one to successfully graft a new nose for a wounded soldier. In 1954, Millard was stationed in South Korea as the U.S. Marine Corps chief plastic surgeon. Although he is known for his cleft palate surgeries, he has also furthered the popularization and advancement of the double eyelid surgery. His patients were mainly South Korean women from the sex trade, volunteering to go under the knife in order to increase their appeal to American GI 's stationed

The first major historical factor that has launched the cosmetic practice in Korea was Japan 's colonial rule which caused anti-Japanese nationalism(Lee, Chongsik, 98). Between 1910 and 1945, Korea fell under the control of Japanese colonists and faced exploitation. As many as 20,000 women were forced to become "comfort women" to Japanese solider while the men were faced with heavy manual labor. Such full-scale enslavement contributed to the hatred and only fueled the Korean 's desire to differentiate themselves from the Japanese. Millard, stationed in South Korea in 1954, wrote in his paper "Oriental Peregrinations" about a Korean translator who requested for his eye to be made into a "round eye" in order to avoid being perceived as a "communist"(Thompson, 98). Millard thus determined that the "flat nose and oriental eyes" were the two features that would make the most striking change but with the least amount of intervention from going under the knife. He observed the increase in requests from Korean patients, requesting a round eye and higher nasal bridge. Especially as eyes are the windows to the soul, to have problematic eyes equals to a problematic soul. Therefore, Millard 's "round eye" surgery influenced the first possibility for this military community to break away from the Asianess/Asian traits. Korean 's eyelid alteration and enlargement are means of correcting