A staggering one in five South Korean women has had cosmetic work done, compared to about one in 20 American women, according to the International Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons. Korean women are seemingly trying to emulate the doll-like features of the K-pop girls in the "Gangnam Style" video and bands like Girls Generation.
Christina Lim, 19, is one of those women. Plastic surgery treatment is “a normal thing,” she said. “My friends, they would actually just go on vacation and then they would come back with a new face.” Lim has appeared occasionally as a translator on Korean TV and aspires to make it a career, but feels the pressure to make some serious physical changes first.“I got lots of hate comments, like, ‘Why is she even on TV? Why is she so fat?’ and I don’t have the looks, I don’t have that idol figure, I don’t have that face,” she said.
She wanted surgery treatment to have her jaw slimmed down and another to reshape her nose. “I guess everyone wants to look like K-Pop idols,” Lim said. “You have to look pretty, you have to have double eyelids, you have to have your v-line face, you have to be slim, but you have to have big breasts and stuff. “I think everyone is trying to delete this Koreanness,” she added. “In Korea, you go down the streets, you see this girl. And you walk down the street, and you see that girl again. It actually is a different person.”
