In Constructing Desirable Bodies by Kimberly Huang, she discusses how sex workers in Vietnam alter their bodies in order to perform femininity to the standards of their male clients. In doing this they are not only making themselves more desirable, but also symbolically representing the economic growth for their country (Huang 135). Creating a desirable appearance often involves plastic surgery, and this is not only popular in Vietnam, but Korea as well, where there is an increasingly large consumer economy revolving around beauty enhancement procedures. The article, “The K-Pop Plastic Surgery Obsession,” discusses the links between the phenomenon of hallyu and plastic surgery procedures that are done to make young women look like K-Pop stars. The article points out that hallyu is not just limited to music, but it promotes beauty standards as well. K-Pop stars are essentially equated with beauty. Similarly to Huang, these young women getting these procedures highlight the fact that they are not modifying their bodies to fit Western ideals of beauty, but rather a uniquely Korean idea of beauty that is perpetuated in Korean culture and media: “Sex workers and their clients played a critical role in contesting hierarchies of race and nation by constructing new, distinctly non-Western ideals of beauty through the workers’ technologies of embodiment”(Huang 131). This article, like Huang, also points out the link between beauty and economic success. In a highly competitive market, women who are considered beautiful are more likely to get hired and paid more money, similarly to the Vietnamese sex workers who were rewarded for performing femininity with “high class” cosmetic procedures. “Beauty is prized almost everywhere in the world, but in South Korea its value is upfront and open. South Korean employers scrutinize the looks of the applicants — in search for physical attractiveness — in addition to their professional qualifications.”
Despite the plastic industry not being fueled by entirely superficial reasons, young women still feel immense pressure to be beautiful and often the way to do this is by investing in expensive, painful procedures. Some girls have accepted the fact that society will judge them regardless of if they get plastic surgery or not, so they feel they might as well look beautiful if they are going to be criticized. One girl in the linked video below, expresses her sadness with the plastic surgery industry in Korea. She said that growing up she would always compare herself to the people who had plastic surgery and feel inadequate. She said that even people who have had plastic surgery procedures claim they are “natural beauties,” which reinforces the idea that women should be naturally beautiful, even when those hailed as the most beautiful are not natural themselves. She points out that people around her began to lose their individuality because they were all getting the same procedures to look like the ideal form of beauty.
While plastic surgery in Korea and other Asian countries, including Vietnam can serve as a way to resist Western beauty ideals, a means for economic gain, and a way to establish geopolitical prominence, it can have negative effects on young women internalizing these ideas that a woman’s value is in her appearance.
The Politics of K-Pop 
My roommate who’s Korean-American and has a beautiful voice shared with me recently how she had once auditioned for K-pop Stars and made it to one of the final rounds, but before she could be shown on television, the producers asked her to get a jaw reconstruction to make her cheekbones appear smaller in order to look more “desirable” to the audience and move further in the competition. She refused and decided to quit singing altogether after that experience. Hearing that story, what I thought was most problematic is that the contestant’s dismissal of appearance-altering results in the dismissal of their participation on stage and on screen altogether. Westerners tend to hold this racist and stereotypical view that all Asians look the same. But then when Korean producers themselves, especially in pop culture fields, create this general beauty standard that everyone must abide by in order to even be considered, which revolves around the girls having very specific and similar looking features, they in a way comply with that western notion by making all the girls look the same through surgery and enhancements, which in turn results in this extremely problematic cycle where on one hand Asians detest this view westerners hold, while on the other, they in a way aid in bolstering it.
All over the world, there is this established hierarchy of skin types and at the very top of that ladder is the 10-plus-steps Korean skincare routine. There is that concept of “you need to work hard” to climb to the top of that ladder. It is the same as when we watched the videos of the Korean-American athletes who needed to reach the highest standard at their respective sports in order to even be accepted and welcomed back to Korea (again, that “work hard for it” mentality). What’s so concerning about this “reaching the top” of the ladder ideology is that it goes beyond just skincare; it ties into the elitist consumer culture that capitalists yearn for. It’s this concept of the ideals of perfection with the highest step of the ladder being one that’s unattainable, unrealistic and entirely exclusive — which works perfectly for the producer and unfortunately, at the expense of the consumer.
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I loved your article and really related to its content. I think it is so incredibly sad that women all over the world, not only in Western culture feel that they must conform to these ideas that they are not beautiful enough for men. That approval and validation from a man is what is considered true success. Women in Asia have moved past trying to fit in with the Western ideals of beauty but have now proceeded to try to fit in with Korean beauty standards, which I feel are even more irrational and unattainable. Korean ideals include the phenomenon of big eyes, a high nose bridge, “glass skin,” a new occurrence in the beauty world, and last but absolutely not least, pale skin. The new skincare marvel of glass skin is something that is next to impossible to achieve yet all of the K-pop idols and stars are endorsing it. Glass skin is trying to make the skin so perfectly smooth, acne-free, poreless, and shiny enough to see a reflection in it. As one can say, this is extremely rare and next to impossible to achieve, yet women are being encouraged to have this or they are not deemed good enough. Something else that women, specifically in Vietnam, are being pressured into is this idea that their skin must be as pale as possible because pale represents true womanhood, purity, and high class. Vietnamese women are going outdoors covered from head to toe with gloves covering the entirety of their arms and masks covering their faces in order to prevent tanning from the sun. The women do this even in extreme heat.”Beauty is pain” as many of us women have heard.
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