hardboiled

why all the fuss?

Ever since I was in middle school, my mom would tell me to eat more because my height was the only thing that couldn't be fixed, and that I wouldn't grow unless I ate more. She would do this when I would complain that I was too short, too fat, too flat, too... anything that I found imperfect about my body. When I told her that if I followed her suggestion, I would just get fatter and not taller, she would tell me that I could fix that when I was older too. Recently, she brought up the idea of my getting the popular double-eyelid surgery when my family goes to Korea in two summers. "I mean, you'd look prettier if you did. And it's not a big deal anyway..." she said to me.

And she's right. It's NOT a big deal. Double eyelid surgery, also called Asian blepharoplasty, is a procedure that creates an upper eyelid crease. It is one of the least intrusive cosmetic surgeries possible and it is very popular with East Asian women, especially because about 50% of them are not born with the desirable double eyelid fold, according to Edward Kwak, a New York Plastic surgeon, on his website. In 2000, the American Society of Plastic Surgeons ranked eyelid surgery number three on the list of most popular cosmetic surgery after liposuction and breast augmentation. The procedure ranks number one in Asia. It can be done by using an incision technique or a suture technique, and the different techniques pose different pros and cons, such as more accurate and permanent results for the incision technique but faster recovery time for the future technique. Doesn't sound so bad so far, right?

What I really don't understand is why there is such negative stigma about double eyelid surgery. Yes, I understand that double eyelid surgery has some negative history in that it was a westernization of Asian ideals of beauty, and that there is backlash in the Asian American community about double eyelid surgery. In an article by Sandy Kobrin titled "Asian-Americans Criticize Eyelid Surgery," published in 2004 by Women's eNews, Dr. Charles Lee, a plastic surgeon who specializes in double eyelid surgery, says, "The increase is due to more exposure to Western goods, culture and makeup in China. It has been that way a long time in Korea and surgery there has been popular since the 1950s." In the article, the procedure was described as "self-mutilation."

But there are two sides to this story. In the before mentioned article, Lee also says "In Asia, people don't see it as ethnically altering the same way they do here... we believe we are just trying to make them look prettier. Just a prettier Asian eye, not a Western eye." I find this an important point because it's not that the double eyelid is simply a "western" trait. According to the statistic I mentioned earlier, about 50% of East Asian women not being born with double eyelids, would mean that the remaining 50% would be born with them. An article written by a CNN staff reporter in 2000 says that "many in the Asian American community argue that the point isn't to look Western, but to look more like other Asians, many of whom have double eyelids naturally."

As for me, I consider double eyelid surgery (and plastic surgery in general) as the same idea as getting braces. Of course there are people who need to have braces for a medical reason, but most people get them to have straighter teeth and more appealing smiles. Having braces involves a prolonged process of forcibly pulling and pushing the teeth into a straight, non-overlapping alignment. This can cost anything from $4,800 to $6,500 for children and more for adults, as their teeth are more permanently rooted and require more time and work to realign, according to a website edited by orthodontists Dr. David Resch and Dr. William S. Becker, located at www.bracesguide.com. On the other hand, double eyelid surgery consists of a very short procedure that, according to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, costs around $2,500, and the procedure could be performed for less in Asia. I'll leave you to do the math and cost-benefit analysis.

Fact is, the first thing that someone sees about you is your outer appearance, as much as I think that personality is important. Think about all those cliché-sounding studies that showed that more attractive people get farther in life or are more successful in their careers. Wouldn't that make anyone want to be more attractive? I'm not advocating that people shouldn't care at all about the inner beauty and nonchalantly go under the knife and fix whatever little thing they find wrong. My stance is that if someone wants to do it and has the means to, then why try to stop them? If it's going to make them feel confident enough to go out and do something with their lives without feeling self-conscious, then I am all for that.

Maybe one year, after a summer in Korea, I will come back and look "different." Maybe it'd be because of the new hairstyle, or the "fobbed-out" outfit, or maybe, just maybe, because my eyes look different. But really, if this "different" is a good kind of different, then why the fuss?