Korea: The hub of plastic surgery?

In January 2009 the New York Times  (along with Wangkon) reported that the rough economic times had taken a heavy toll upon the plastic surgery industry in Korea.  How popular was plastic surgery prior to the financial crush?

From a luxury limited to the wealthy a decade ago, according to ARA, plastic surgery has become so common that an estimated 30 percent of Korean women aged 20 to 50, or some 2.4 million women, had surgical or nonsurgical cosmetic procedures last year, with many having more than one procedure.

Our own Mr. Marmot also  blogged in October 2009 about the high number of women willing to go under the knife:

A straw poll suggests that nearly 90 percent of Korean women would have plastic surgery to feel better about themselves. The Chosun Ilbo asked 232 women in their 20s and 30s who visited the website of matchmaking specialist Duo during Sep. 8 to 17 whether they had ever thought about getting plastic surgery. Some 86.6 percent answered yes. When asked whether they would get plastic surgery if it could help them get over anxiety about their looks or if they had the money, almost all or 98.3 answered yes.

Only one in 50 respondents or 1.7 percent said they did not wish to undergo plastic surgery. None said personality rather than looks is what matters.

Even Jon Huer weighed in with his article in Korea Times (August 14, 2009).

But an indication of just how serious plastic surgery is in Korea, and its apparent recovery, was the recent uproar over the tax exemption of penis enlargements even though breasts augumentations were subject to taxation (Mr. Marmot’s posting). Supposedly, Korean men are more self-conscious of their member’s size than women are of their breasts. According to this report - Korean men are not the only ones concerned about their size.  The report concluded that size doesn’t matter to women (notice, however, the authors were males). Perhaps men with inferiority complexes should be looking at other options – including Korean ginseng and penis exercises (August 4, 2010).  

InFebruary 2009, Sonagi blogged about the large number of Korean movie stars going under the knife to improve their careers – some of them not so successful.  Perhaps the worst was this one reported in the Telegraph  November 2008 (horrible picture).

Not surprisingly, male movie stars and singers are also having work done.  A member of the boygroup Big Bang confessed that he underwent surgery following a traffic accident  but had also contemplated having his face changed to look more like one or two movie stars he admired.

FOREIGNERS’ CHOICE

Sonagi noted that Korean movie stars are not the only ones going under the knife – but was Sonagi aware that Korea was on the verge of adding a new title to its list of hubs?  According to the Choson Ilbo, October 29, 2010:

Kristan Davis, who played Charlotte in “Sex and The City,” pop singer Sheena Easton whose hit songs include “For Your Eyes Only,” actors Peter Fonda and Suzanne Somers and Yan Bin of Ruoy Chai International Group were all in Korea on Sunday last week.

They came to visit an anti-aging center which opens to the public on Thursday.

Set up by CHA Health Systems, the Chaum Center combines oriental, western and alternative medicines to slow down the aging process. The celebrities were given a medical check-up, spa therapy, stem cell skincare and a nutritional consultation.

Given, the article doesn’t claim that they came for plastic surgery but apparently, judging from articles published in Choson Ilbo (March 2, 2010) and  (April 13, 2010), there is an increasing number of foreigners coming for just that – the knife.  The Choson Ilbo stated that some 50,000 foreigners – most of them Chinese – had come to Korea for plastic surgery in 2009.  This is a huge increase over the 25,000 in 2008 (Channel News Asia, March 27, 2009) and 1,000 foreign patients in 2006 (Joongang Ilbo, July 14, 2008)

Plastic surgery in Korea is becoming such a lucrative market that it has apparently threatened some plastic surgeons in the United States.  New York-based Dr. Kwak created this list of three common misconceptions to help Americans decide whether or not Korea is right for them.

But according to a report cited in echinacities.com (August 12, 2o1o), Korea is not the hub of plastic surgery – that honor belongs to United States!

WebMD, a well-known American health and nursing care information website, reported on August 9th that the International Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery had announced the results of a 2009 global survey about the application of plastic surgery in different countries. Results revealed that in 2009, the three countries with the most practice of plastic surgery were the US, Brazil and China. That year, 17.5% and 14.3% of the world’s plastic surgeries occurred in America and Brazil; those in China take up 12.7% of the world’s total.

The other countries that ranked in the 4th to 10th in the world for most practice of plastic surgeries are India, Mexico, Japan, South Korea, Germany, Turkey, and Spain, respectively. South Korea, a country that had normally ranked higher, and is well known for their obsession with aesthetic plastic surgeries, is in fact in the seventh place this time around, completely overtaken by China.