Happier Abroad Forum Community

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?

Looks are the absolute most important thing in mating bar none. Intelligence, status, money and morality are laughable second places. A person with zero looks but high everything else has never beaten someone who's more attractive.

Of course you will have some people saying that money counts. These are poor people who think if you cross just the right financial line women start running after you. I use to think this way and then I was confronted with reality. People want to believe this because they know it's something they have control over.

Then you have people who say everyone is unique and universal beauty doesn't exist. These individuals are against any form of transformation and ruthlessly enforce a natural status quo in the most underhanded way possible. We should call these people what they are, which is attractive aristocrats who lord over a ugly slave class. These people are invariably in the highest of the high percentile for looks. They only care about defending their genetics in the same way that jews are racist. They deliberately push this feel good about yourself bullshit philosophy as counter insurgent propaganda to keep ugly people remaining ugly. Since most people would rather accept that they're unique than objectively ugly this is very effective.

I wouldn't do plastic surgery because of the risks. However I don't see how it's conceptually different from fixing teeth.

.

Drealm and Ghost - two replies, two polar opposite views.

Drealm, it's true that modern society places a massive emphasis on looks. Even all the Filipinas who tell "gwapo" (handsome) to virtually any foreign man who breathes and walks, regardless of age and actual looks, are a lot less beauty-blind than they want us to believe. I know of a reasonably pretty girl (white skin, cute face, big boobs) in Davao sticking to her Korean middle-aged boyfriend when he was in town (and ready to throw cash at her). She is a friend of a friend and we spent a night together at a club, sheared coach etc. She started to dance to a just about passable but young bearded guy, a bad copy or Roosh basically, who turned out being Italian. I invited a few people at my place for an after-party and, boy, she was all over him. She basically told him straight in his face that she wanted to have sex with him even though he was going to leave town for good and never be back. I laughed and asked her why she would cheat on her bf considering she had said two minutes before that he was "gwapo".

"Yeah, but he is gwapo-gwapo", was her answer.

I think it basically works this way. Good looks and youth are always welcome and are always a priority when the girl has everything in her life sorted out: a job or a family that give her a roof, good food everyday and a measure of financial independence. Those girls can afford to be picky, and looks always play a big part. This is the case in South Korea, as it would be in every first-world society.

However, if the girl has getting her basic needs satisfied as a priority, her partner's looks take the back-seat, but only insofar the man is willing to give her what she needs (which might be very little, for "simple" Filipinas, or much more for the more materialistic ones). Then if the girl is a slutty one (like the one above) and in a safe position, they will always be tempted by younger, better looking, more confident guys. I would say it doesn't happen to all girls, or all Filipinas, but from what I could see in Davao, it happens a LOT, especially if the girl doesn't have a kid with the foreigner and he is not around all the time.

So yes, looks are generally important to secure a girl of comparable looks, whether the intent it to find a hot young lady and secure her for the long run, or just to womanize. This is true in the UK as well as in the Philippines.

Ghost, the idea that all good looking men and girls are soulless creatures is a myth, as it is a myth that unattractive people are automatically better endowed on the intellectual and moral side. It's a bit like that old adage that short or balding men are better hung than tall or hairy ones. When one is attractive, or becomes attractive by alternative means like drastic surgery, they are raising their "face value" no matter the age, race or cutural fabric of their intended female audience. Women are always pleased by youthful looks, a well proportioned face and a body in good shape. It's true for men, and it's equally true for women.

In the Philippines and China, women are looking for a good man because their priority is financial stability for themselves and their families. That doesn't change the fact that, all things being equal, they will always go for the better looking man. Some Filipinas, and even my wife once said that about Colombians, often shun good looking young men because they assume their looks will always make them elusive and prone to cheating. Exactly the same as men some feeling insecure and overly jealous about their trophy wives.

One thing I agree with you on, Ghost, is that that kind of cosmetic surgery, the bone and muscle chopping one, has a higher chance to result in a more artificial and weird look as time pass by and facial skin relaxes. In my original post, I was assuming that surgery would result in a dramatic, yet natural-looking improvement or transformation.

And about kids not benefiting from the effects of surgery on their parents...who cares anymore in places like Korea and Japan, where families are either childless or wealthy enough to ensure their kids will probably have access to the same kidns of procedures when they grow up.

One of the great curses of modern society: we all live in the here and now. Without religious or philosophical beliefs that allow us to project our desires, hopes and sacrifices towards a future reward, the struggle for happiness in the present is all we have left.

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.

.

My family has a blue-ray that hooks up to the Internet. We can watch YouTube and a number of other websites that have formats that word with our device. I was looking for a movie online and decided to check out Asiancrush, which has Asian films with subtitles. My family watched 200 Pound Beauty, a movie about a hideous fat singer who hide behind stage while the better looking (but not that great looking) K-Pop star lip synched and danced. He underwent a year of plastic surgery and exercise, came out pretty (an 8 maybe), and became a K-Pop star.

From watching the movie, it seemed like plastic surgery was a big deal in their society.

I don't have any deformities so I doubt I'll get plastic surgery. My wife asks me if I'll let her get some work done some day. I say I want the real thing, not bags of water or silicon, so no.

[duplicate post]

Rock wrote: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.

A complex and multi-faceted issue that you dissected in great detail, especially in terms of surgical options, risks and expectations. Thanks for weighing in!

I have to say most of the case study photos I have seen on those Korean websites depict pretty visible, if not extreme, cases of facial imperfections, some of which are probably relatively common in the Korean ethic type. The small-eyed, square jaw Korean is a classi (negative) stereotype that comes to mind. I personally haven't seen many pretty Korean girls, and I have seen a lot more Japanese cuties. Given the overwhelmingly higher popularity of cosmetic surgery in Korea compared to Japan (with the exclusion of double eyelid and perhaps breast augmentation procedures), I would assume much of that Japanese beauty is natural and much of that Korean beauty is at least in part attributable to surgery.

Another thing that surprised me in my conversations with said Korean friend is the amount of men who undergo surgery. The statistics point at a 40% of the total being male patients, the majority being in the 18-30 range. This means those men are not using surgery to fight against the visible outcomes of aging, but tidying up their aspect to secure a better position in the dating & mating game, or perhaps stand out more in their careers.

Finally, it is true that women in different parts of the world tend to give priority to qualities other than physical appearance and age, when it comes to finding a life partner. In my OP I was hinting at surgical transformation as a way to enhance one's chances in the same dating market, so as a substitute of going abroad to find a women who might find them more attractive, yet will bring larger cultural or language gaps on the table.

MrMan wrote:My family has a blue-ray that hooks up to the Internet. We can watch YouTube and a number of other websites that have formats that word with our device. I was looking for a movie online and decided to check out Asiancrush, which has Asian films with subtitles. My family watched 200 Pound Beauty, a movie about a hideous fat singer who hide behind stage while the better looking (but not that great looking) K-Pop star lip synched and danced. He underwent a year of plastic surgery and exercise, came out pretty (an 8 maybe), and became a K-Pop star.

From watching the movie, it seemed like plastic surgery was a big deal in their society.

I don't have any deformities so I doubt I'll get plastic surgery. My wife asks me if I'll let her get some work done some day. I say I want the real thing, not bags of water or silicon, so no.

That's what I gathered, too. Cosmetic surgery is pretty popular among young men in Japan, too, but nowhere near as much as in South Korea. Perhaps it's that Korean "can do" approach coupled with a more American sense of aesthetics.

As far a I remember, your wife is still young and pretty. I think it will be a very long time before she will even need a surgical solution to her sagging problems.