The last relationship with a woman was a few years ago. Park Jae Hun hopes that this will change now. He has done a lot for it.
He had his eyelids and nose operated. Now the contours on his chin are worked out and the corners of his mouth are corrected. They should point upwards, he wants to appear friendlier. He would like to have a nice girlfriend, Park says. “Maybe I’ll have more chances.”
Park, 29, is sitting in a café in South Korea’s capital, Seoul. His hair is thinning, so sometimes he wears a wig, as he does today. After coffee, he will go to his appointment at the clinic.
Doctor Rhee Byung Jun examines the face of Park Jae Hun.Photo: Suhwa Lee/ SPIEGEL ONLINE
If you ask him what he likes about his looks, Park can’t think of anything. He has been able to approach people better since he started as a video blogger two years ago, he says. Since then, however, he has liked his reflection less and less: “Maybe my face has a problem.”
The pressure to look good is huge in South Korea. Worldwide, most cosmetic procedures per capita are performed here – this includes both operations and injections, for example with Botox. Especially in the cities, self-optimization is expected. Especially in demand are “Petit Seonghyeong” – i.e. “small interventions” with Botox or fillers to shape the face.
Koreans, for example, also go to the beauty clinic to have better chances with an application – so important is attractiveness even on the job market. “This reflects the attitude of Koreans towards their own bodies: It could be good for me, so I do it,” says Joanna Elfving-Hwang of the University of Western Australia, who is doing intensive research on the topic.
The screen shows the parts of the face that need to be treated. Photo: Suhwa Lee/ SPIEGEL ONLINE
“In the West, the many cosmetic surgeries in Seoul are often seen as a lack of moral compass,” says Elfving-Hwang, who has also lived in Frankfurt. “In Germany, you usually have to justify yourself in detail before such an operation, for example that you have always suffered from your nose.” In Seoul, some clinics offer to have your lips injected during your lunch break. 30 minutes preparation, ten minutes injection, done.
Park Jae Hun is also fast. After the anesthetic cream has worked, he lies on a couch in a cream-colored room. The doctor places ten stitches around the lips, after nine minutes the corners of the mouth are injected. After four more minutes, the procedure on the jaw is finished.
Park puts on a black respirator to cover his face. When asked if he feels different now, he just laughs. Such a doctor’s appointment is no longer anything special for him. On the Internet, he will later rave about the clinic and does not have to pay for the procedure.
The entrances of many clinics are carefully designed, some look like hotel lobbies.Photo: Suhwa Lee/ SPIEGEL ONLINE
The reviews on the net are important, the clinics compete for every customer. In some streets of the affluent district of Gangnam, one or more centers for aesthetic interventions lure in almost every high-rise building. The entrance areas, with their marble counters and leather sofas, look like hotel lobbies. There are also a lot of people walking around with respirators, even when the air is clean.
2330 plastic surgeons practice in South Korea, nowhere else do more plastic surgeons come to every inhabitant of the country. In apps such as Gangnam Unnie, users can upload photos of themselves in advance and also get online advice from clinics.
However, it is not only locals who want to be beautified in South Korea. Already at the capital airport, a counter welcomes the so-called medical tourists from all over the world, most of them come from China. Compared to the previous year, the number of foreign visitors traveling to South Korea for surgery increased by 37 percent in 2018. In some packages the shuttle service from the airport is included, in addition to the medical procedure, a tourist tour is also offered. All this has earned Seoul the title of “World Capital of Plastic Surgery”.
The Gangnam district in the capital Seoul is considered the center of the beauty industry in South Korea.Photo: Suhwa Lee/ SPIEGEL ONLINE
Most surgeries in South Korea are performed on the nose and eye – for a second eyelid crease – and risky chin surgery is also becoming increasingly popular. But perfect is often not perfect enough. The latest trend is to have your head shaped round with implants to look good in profile.
“Some twenty-year-olds give me the image of a pop star and say they want to look like this,” says Rhee Byung Jun, who works as a plastic surgeon at BK Plastic Surgery. However, he refused some operations.
The Korean ideal of beauty is exemplified by no one as consistently as by these young stars with their fine – often operated – facial features, their porcelain skin and shiny hair.
Already at the entrance to the metro station Sinsa advertising for the clinics can be seen. Often the doctors can also be seen on the ads, which advertise themselves. Photo: Suhwa Lee/ SPIEGEL ONLINE
Gangnam’s subway stations are full of advertisements for the clinics. But for some Koreans, it’s apparently enough. After more than a thousand complaints that this conveys an “unhealthy, distorted body image”, the Seoul Metro has terminated the contracts with the advertisers.
Feminists have long vehemently denounced the ideal of beauty – it is part of a culture that is geared to male needs, that turns women into objects and conveys unrealistic body images.
According to clinics, 80 percent of customers are women. However, the “older ones” are not oriented towards pop stars, but are mainly concerned with the topic of anti-aging: Korean women in their mid-30s rely a lot on injections such as Botox injections or fillers to look younger.
“Most people want to be beautiful,” says doctor Suh Dong Hoon. Here he does a laser lift for the patient Park Tae Ha.Photo: Suhwa Lee/ SPIEGEL ONLINE
Increasingly, however, men are also getting into the maelstrom of the beauty industry. Especially for younger people, good looks and fitness are becoming increasingly important, says Professor Elfving-Hwang. “The K-pop aesthetic favors that — young men are allowed to take care of their looks.” And they are willing to invest a lot.
Like 33-year-old Park Tae Ha, who says of himself: “I want to look natural. But I also want to look better than others.” He has been dieting for years, has broad beauty shoulders, accurately cut black hair and smooth skin. Very smooth skin.
He started Botox four years ago and has since had another five injections. He has had his face treated with laser 20 times. Four times he has received injections in the jaw area.
Park Tae Ha also has his skin treated with ultrasound. Photo: Suhwa Lee/ SPIEGEL ONLINE
At the beginning of April, he sits with a hot and throbbing face in the “VIP Room” of the Yonsei Nanum Clinic. He has been injected again to look more symmetrical, firmer and distinctive. Had laser flashes descend over his skin and had his skin lifted with ultrasound. The effect will last a year. When it subsides, Park wants to come back, even if it hurts.
A few kilometers away, the doctor Choi Chul lives out the “Loc ‘n Roll” at the Clinic Gyul the following day. He came up with this term. It is a combination of “V-Loc Lifting”, in which the skin is lifted by threads, and “Needle Shaping”, in which the facial skin is optically rejuvenated with acupuncture needles and electric current.
On the couch in front of him in the operating room lies Kim Myeong Hye, 59 years old, a housewife from Seoul. Almost all of her friends take Botox for wrinkles on the eyes and forehead. One advised her to undergo the current procedure.
Kim Myeong Hye looks at herself in the mirror after her treatment.Photo: Suhwa Lee/ SPIEGEL ONLINE
“Women should always make an effort with their appearance,” Kim says before her procedure, “I will do this until the end of my life.” She wanted to enjoy the time in retirement, Koreans lived very long. For her, this includes discovering new hobbies, playing golf – and investing in her own appearance.