publicduende wrote:One of the two architects I summoned up to fit out my offices in Davao is a Korean-Filipino man in his mid 40s. He was born and raised in South Korea until his 20s, then sent to Davao to be "adopted" by his dad's best friend. He went to university in Davao and he has been living in the two countries ever since, at regular intervals. I found him a very interesting cross-over: smart, meticulous and hard-working as a Korean and witty, friendly and laid-back like a (well educated) Pinoy. The best of both worlds, basically.
We soon became good friends and have been inviting each other for beer and dinners for a couple of months now. He is a good conversation and I have put that quality to good use to learn a lot more about Korean culture, society and history than I was previously bothered to. I too, like many others, had been bundling Japan and South Korea into the same box, seeing the latter as a manifestation of the former delayed by 20 or 30 years. Both countries have showed an incredible economic miracle that gave the world a great deal of technological progress while making them incredibly prosperous in a, well, miraculously short time. Japan reached its socio-economic maturity in the 80s and has been stuck in stagnation, if not outright decline, ever since. According to my friend, while South Korea is already showing signs of the kind of cultural self-indulgence and decadence that doomed Japan, its people are culturally much more resilient and malleable than the Japanese to willingly throw themselves in the mouth of decline. Japanese pulled one fantastic stunt and stubbornly rode the their bikes assuming the road would always be straight and the wind always in their favour. Koreans have always been aware that the road is winding and windy and know how to steer. With all due respect to this friend of mine, my heart will always be with Japan. None the less, not much I could argue there: more power to Korea!
One of the most interesting conversations had with him was about the current, notorious craze of Koreans, women and men alike, with extreme plastic surgery, the dramatic, face-transforming kind. It is true that South Korea is home to a large number of high-quality, relatively inexpensive clinics, many of which specialise in complex procedures like cranial and maxillo-facial surgery. At the same time, it is also true that being willing to ride a conveyor belt of procedures that is guaranteed to change one's appearance almost completely, to the point that their families or partners won't recognise them anymore, requires a unique mindset and doses of courage and resolve that, I am sure, very few people in the West could muster.
On this topic, a recurring question was as to how Korean youngsters can make up their minds so quickly on having their appearance changed so drastically, with the risk of getting de-sensitised to their identity, losing their sense of self. I am no George Clooney, yet would never want my face to change from what it is now. OK with more hair, teeth one or two shades whiter, some facial fat lost to a good workout, but that's where it stops for me. I popped the question to several Filipinos and Filipinas, age ranging between 18 and 40, and all of them unanimously said they would never accept themselves if their appearance were to change too much from what they are. The term "retokada" associated to actresses and starlets who used the surgeon's knife a wee too much, isn't generally used as a compliment, and is synomim with "cheating Mother Nature", finding an easy way out of biological conformity. Ironially, as many of you know, the ultimate escapist dream of beauty for the average Filipina is to have a couple of white-skinned kids from a Western man. Potentially cheaper and far more future-proof.
So the concise, straight answer from my Korean friend was: unlike Japanese, Koreans have no qualms about not playing by the rules. They are culturally moulded to be "whatever it takes" kind of people. Japanese, he said, are taught from kindergarden to inform their acts with a deep sense of justice and grace, and always with the common good in mind. Koreans are perhaps more heavily Confucianist on this: whatever the path, it's the end that justifies the means. A Japanese young man who is ugly by any objective standard would tend to accept his status and its consequences. Depending on personality, upbringing and external factors, his coping mechanisms might lead him to fight back like a hero, develop other qualities and succeed in grabbing the modicum of social acceptance and respect he is longing, or get hopeless and lock himself in his bedroom, at safe distance from the bullying and the socio-sexual frustrations that would meet him in the outside world.
Faced with the same reality, a Korean would beg his parents, rob a bank or work 3 jobs to get enough cash and get that "Mother Nature cheat sheet" in place. Even if that means waking up looking a completely different person. Whatever trauma associated to accepting this new, butterfly-out-of-the-caterpillar self, would be offset by a surge in self-confidence and the dramatic improvements in social acceptance and their dating/love life. I have little problem believing this. In Davao, the two or three classier nightclubs are home to a small number of Korean English students. Many of them are quite blatantly "retokados" and look creepily clones of one another. However they got the looks from, it's working, as I often see them entwined with some of the hottest and prettiest girls I could hope to see in town.
A nice cinematic summary by a character from one of Pedro Almodovar's movies, All About My Mother.
It costs a lot to be authentic, ma'am, and one can't be stingy with these things, because you are more authentic the more you resemble what you've dreamed of being.
So, in a community predicated on the notion that any insecurity about looks, any socio-sexual frustration can be erased by dating in locations where physical appearance and status are held in much higher relative value, I'd like to throw in the question.
If you had some spare cash, to an amount not dissimilar to what is needed for 6 months in the Philippines or Colombia, or one of those magical mystery tours in Ukraine, would you be willing to "pull a Korean" and undergo chain surgery to finally look like the kind of hot stud that any woman (American, European, Asian, etc.) would be attracted to?
This is a complex issue multi faceted issue. There is no simple answer to your question but rather many shades and factors to weigh.
1. Some types of surgeries, drugs, or procedures which potentially can alter your appearance and perhaps enhance or diminish your attractiveness and desirability to certain women out there.
a. Hard tissue adjustments
- 1 or 2 jaw surgery combined with mandatory orthodontics (can adjust profile proportions - over or underbite - and even left right facial symmetry.
- malar reduction by shortening the connecting bones in 2 places each side or even shaving down the surface slightly
- jaw bone shaving
- attachment of malar, submalar, chin, or jaw implants (usually made of hard silicon)
- nose changes via reductions or enhancements - shaving down tissue, or adding to bridge with silicon or fat which can morph over time into harder tissue (stem cell effect)
b. Soft tissue adjustments
- fat transplants
- liposuction
- chemical or laser treatments to skin, varies in options from superficial to very deep.
- botox for mandible reduction
- various types of skin and underlying tissue lifts and re-drapes
- botox for temporary reduction of dynamic wrinkles on forehead and crows feet area
- synthetic and non-synthetic filler injections for temporary enhancements
- clipping of certain facial muscles to reduce unwanted skin damaging overanimation
c. Body adjustments
- limb lengthening surgery (can add 2 inches each to lower and upper legs for a total height increase of up to 4 inches)
- liposuction to stubborn areas (love handles, superficial belly fat, or even man breasts)
- implants to bicep, pecs, etc. to look more muscular
- butt implants
- fat transplants to butt, or other areas of body which are proportionally too small
- hormone treatments which w/exercise can alter proportions (reduce belly fat, increase lean tissue, etc.)
- shaving body hair
d. Head hair modifications
- Hair transplants
- Propecia
- Rogaine
- Hair pieces
- Hair coloring/grey reduction
2. Some of the above can make dramatic changes in your appearance while others will be virtually unnoticeable and immaterial. They may carry critical potentially life altering risks or be extremely safe. Two types of risks to consider
- General surgery risk: chances of being injured, loosing some function, being blinded or dying. Limb lengthing surgery for example is high risk with a significant complication rate. A number of those cases end up never walking properly again. Some lipo cases result in death and a small number of people never wake up from general anesthesia though the percentage these days is very low, virtually insignificant.
- Cosmetic and functional risk: You may get less dramatic improvement than you hoped for, you may end up looking worse, you may end up looking unnatural and strange, you may suffer some facial paralysis or nerve damage which affects your look in animation, your vision of what is attractive vs. that of most others maybe be radically different due to distorted perception, BDD, etc.
- With some of the difficult procedures with high upside but also downside, it behooves you to seek out and pay for the best handful of doctors on the planet for that particular surgery as evidenced by same condition high volume of before and after photos, number of cases underbelt (should be thousands or even 10s of thousands over 1-3 decades), and even info gleaned from discussion boards. For example, there are maybe less than 5 docs in S. Korea who are the global kings in cosmetic orthognathic and craneo facial surgery. There are perhaps 4-5 clinics in Brazil and Spain who are by far the best in the world for butt enhancements through silicon and/or fat transplants. USA has a 2 or 3 arguably top facelift and fat grafting doctors in the world. France has the top and safest doctor and method for limb lengthening. Thailand is probably the best place in world to have sex reassignment surgery and ancillary methods from puberty (male to female) if you get the one of the top 10 docs in Bangkok or Pattaya for that. If you choose the wrong doctor or have a distorted vision of what you wish to achieve, you will may end up looking weird or even freakish. Hollywood is littered with such cases and so is S. Korea.
- Finally, altering your appearance dramatically may cause you to loose your original identity or distinction. Imagine say Jay Leno without his signature chin. He just wouldn't be Jay Leno anymore and would loose something valuable. Look at how say Renee Zellwegger seems to have suddenly changed a year or two ago and no longer has that cute chubby faced look which was part of her brand and charisma. Even if she's closer to classic beauty ideal, she's lost something valuable and I think most people preferred her before look.
3. Upside
- Do you have obvious flaws which if handled could dramatically improve your look (crooked nose, unsightly blemish or mole, extreme acne and associated scaring, significant degree of balding combined with face and head which looks significantly better w/fuller head of hair, under/overbite, facial asymmetry 1.5 SD or more above general population which some Korean cosmetic cranio docs are prepared to measure, under/over developed chin/jaw/cheeks/malar area/midface etc. which throw off overall facial proportion and balance, height 1.5 SD or below general population, a very gaunt face, sun damaged skin, an overabundance of unsightly facial fat, etc).
4. Alternatives/environmental factors
- Physical attractiveness in a male can generally be boiled down to 2 components - universal (height, symmetry, skin quality, overall proportions, apparent youth) and environmentally influenced (preferred deviations in a given culture - square jaw vs. tapered jaw, facial hair vs. clean cut look, feminine vs. masculine look, darker vs. lighter skin, ethnicity, thug vs. clean cut, thick body hair vs. no body hair, etc.
- Changing environments can help certain guys with the latter. Say if you look more clean cut and feminine but live in a culture in which women may prefer masculinity, you might become instantly more attractive just by say moving from Russia or Nigeria to China or Thailand. If you are tatooed and muscle bound like say the infamous Sharky of Pattaya, you might find yourself more popular with certain women in Australia or the USA than in say HK or Vietnam. Do you in anyway resemble a celeb who is very popular in a certain country or region? If so, it might make instantly improve your appeal just to move there. Are you a shorter man in say Holland or even S. Korea. Move to Philippines/Cambodia/Indonesia/Guatamala and instantly become significantly since your perceived height is relative to general population.
- Women in some cultures are much more focused on superficial traits of males they consider for dating and mating with than others. And some countries/ cultures/ethnicities happen to have on average males who are more attractive based on absolute factors than females or vice versa.
Women in China are much more willing to date and mate with average or slightly below average looking guys than girls in Macedonia are. Both factors above play a role.
- Women who with lower estrogen levels, less fertility, and often higher IQ and a more rational approach to life are less likely to cheat for lustful motivation (younger sexier guy) than women who fall at opposite end of spectrum.
I probably have more to say on this which I may or may not post later.