I have heard often enough that the people in South Korea are feng shui enthusiasts and they would go to all lengths in order to max their personal fortune. Read the following article on why some South Koreans opt for plastic surgery not for aethetic reasons but for the sake of wealth and romance luck.
For love and money, Koreans turn to facial tucks
By Su Hyun Lee
Published: WEDNESDAY, MAY 31, 2006
SEOUL: Fat is something that most people would want to remove from their cheeks. Kim Eun Young, however, had her cheekbones plumped up by a cosmetic surgeon in the hope that her husband's business would blossom.
"People say that the fortunes of a husband and a wife go hand in hand," said Kim, 36, a housewife. "But I've never had plump cheeks and two fortune-tellers told me that this meant that money would slip away."
In South Korea, where cosmetic surgery and fortune-telling are national obsessions, it was perhaps inevitable that the two would eventually combine.
Men and women of all ages are increasingly undergoing plastic surgery so that a new nose with a straight bridge and distinct nodules, a slightly wide and protruding forehead, or sufficient cheekbones will bring wealth and the drive to take charge of their lives.
"One in 10 of my patients asks me to operate on them based on what they believe would bring good fortune in the future," said Lee Won Suk, a plastic surgeon.
Bigger eyes and cherry lips - with the size of the upper and lower lips balanced - are particularly popular with women going under the knife because they suggest happiness and love to come.
And for those wanting to ward off bad luck, the removal of dark spots - especially those under eyes, which are called "teardrops" and predict loneliness - is a must.
Physiognomy, or the art of face reading, has been practiced for centuries in Korea - as well as in other Asian countries - as a way of divining a person's future.
Koreans also believe that personality is reflected in a person's facial features and that they are shaped by fate, genes and lifestyle.
"In agricultural Korea, people lived in their hometowns and rarely moved," said Cho Sung Ho, who is a well-known physiognomist in South Korea. "So, Koreans felt that they could discern a person's family background, lifestyle and fate by looking at facial features."
He said that the tradition "continues to this day."
In addition to face reading, Koreans also examine everything from birth dates to the number of written strokes in a person's name to choose employees, business partners and spouses. It is not unusual for parents to approve or reject a potential son-in-law or daughter-in-law based solely on these signs.
"You can't change your birth date, but you can change your looks," Cho said.
So strong is the Korean belief in the accuracy of these signs that fortune- telling is a $200 million business in South Korea, according to Baek Woon San, president of the Korean Association of Physiognomists.
Cho Eul Jae, a plastic surgeon based in the south of the city, said, "One patient said that she came to me because her fortune-tellers had told her to go to a surgery south of Seoul and to a surgeon with the surname starting with a certain Korean character."
Plastic surgeons say that surgery based on face-reading began after the Asian financial crisis of 1997-1998 made competition in the workplace more fierce.
Many people running their own businesses or looking for jobs or promotions resorted to plastic surgery to improve their fortunes, they say.
Cosmetic surgery based on physiognomy does not necessarily make a person look more beautiful, but some people appear ready to sacrifice aesthetics for better fortunes.
Park Hyun, a plastic surgeon, said a middle-aged woman had once come to him requesting an upwardly curving chin. She believed that a transformed chin would bring peaceful and prosperous golden years - and surely would make her son give up gambling.
"I told her that it would hurt the harmony with the rest of her features," Park said, "but she still said, 'I don't care, just fix it.'"
This type of plastic surgery accounts for only a small fraction of the $500 million cosmetic surgery industry, according to plastic surgeons, who tend to be conservative when revealing figures.
According to Confucian traditions, tampering with one's physical features is not only disrespectful to one's ancestors, but also potentially damaging to oneself and one's descendants.
But while Koreans have retained their belief in traditional fortune- telling, many have adopted the modern belief that a nip here and a tuck there can actually alter their fate.
Plastic surgeons said that physiognomy is a good marketing tool for them, and some clinics extol its virtues in advertisements.
"Because more and more of my patients ask me if certain plastic surgery procedures would be good for their fortune, I have been reading some physiognomy books," said Paek Seung Joon, a plastic surgeon.
As the domestic market grows, South Korean plastic surgeons are already looking to a potentially far bigger market: China, where many people share a similar faith in fortune-telling.
South Korean surgeons are already taking business trips to China, according to Paek and media reports.
A newspaper in Harbin, China, reported in January that young entrepreneurs and their wives were turning to plastic surgery in the belief that they would become wealthier. Some had asked that their faces be changed to look just like a local billionaire's, the report said.
Koh Eun Seo, a counselor at a hospital in Seoul, says surgery did wonders for her.
Eight years ago, she had fat injected in her face to fade out wrinkle lines between her nose and mouth. The wrinkles could have made her lose money, she had been told.
"I don't know if it's the boost of confidence that resulted, but since I underwent the surgery, I certainly earned more money and my professional life has become much more stable," she said. "I strongly recommend plastic surgery to people with unlucky facial features."
http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/05/14/news/face.php?page=2
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