bleached bananas

a friend recently asked me if i ever thought about getting plastic surgery. i said yes. she was surprised and asked how i could be okay with it in terms of my feminism. but i think the motives matter. getting a boob job to look more sexy or appealing to men is different from getting a boob job to have enough boobage to not feel like a pubescent child.

the only plastic surgery i've considered (and not seriously), is double eyelid surgery. mostly because my mom brings it up occasionally and because my cousin had it done (my cousin also had her boobs done, but my mom hasn't hassled me much about that).

but back to motives for getting surgery. the thing that worries me is not that i'd be doing it for men, cause i can't even be bothered to wear makeup or brush my hair, so clearly i don't care that much about what people, much less men, think of the way i look. but i worry that i would be doing it to look more "white." which brings me to this article posted on jezebel about the popularity of plastic surgery in south korea. the article mostly comments about the pictures posted on the korean plastic surgery tumblr.

what got to me tho, was the comments on the jezebel article. specifically ari schwartz's comment about how maybe asians aren't trying to look white, per say, but that they're own standards of beauty happen to coincide with western ideals.

i somewhat agree with his comments. yes, most cultures, including asians, prize lighter skin. and yes, asians don't like big noses or fat chins or teeny tiny eyes. historically, the chinese like a "gua zhi lian" or "melon seed" shaped face, which is larger on top and tapers to a narrow chin. however, (and i'm only sure of the chinese aspect of this) the chinese have always favored almond shaped eyes. not these very large eyes many of these women are striving for. no traditional asian painting has ever featured a women with eyes that big. that you can absolutely attribute to westernization. dyed blond hair and blue colored contacts you can also thank the western world for.

i have mixed feelings about getting double eyelid surgery. my left eye is noticeably smaller than my right one, and i think double eyelid surgery would probably fix that. but deep down, yeah, i would be getting double eyelid surgery in order to have larger eyes, which, at least for me, is because i favor the wider-eyed look of caucasians. so i long ago decided i wouldn't get double eyelid surgery.

another interesting article: "korea's plastic surgery boom attributed to rise of k-pop"