"As long as I can remember, I've wanted to be someone else," New York-based photographer Ji Yeo writes of her complicated relationship with plastic surgery.
Yeo is not the only one. The desire is multiplied by the millions in her native Seoul, often called the world’s capital for plastic surgery. In a new exhibition on display in New York, Yeo showcases photographs that document the experience of plastic surgery in South Korea, where 20 percent of women have had some form of cosmetic work, compared to 5 percent of American women, according to widely cited data from the International Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons.
In raw numbers, Brazil performed the most procedures overall in 2013, followed by the United States, but the plastic surgery industry in South Korea is legion. The New Yorker profiled it earlier this year, reporting that among the reasons for getting surgery on a questionnaire to prospective patients was "preparing for a job," "wedding" and "regaining self-confidence." Patricia Marx, the author of the story, theorized that it's not surprising that a country that had such a miraculous economic turnaround would embrace cosmetic surgery.
After the Korean War, the country’s G.D.P. per capita ($64) was less than that of Somalia, and its citizens lived under an oppressive regime. Today, South Korea has the fourteenth-highest G.D.P. in the world. Is it really surprising, then, that a country that had the resilience to make itself over so thoroughly is also the capital of cosmetic about-faces?
Of course, many places have remade themselves economically and are not plastic surgery capitals, but there's no denying the role plastic surgery plays in the country's economy. South Korea has more than 2,000 plastic surgeons. Its medical tourism industry tripled its revenue from 2009 through 2012, rising to $453 million, Bloomberg News has reported. Much of that boom in foreign business is coming from China, but also Japan, Taiwan, Russia and the Middle East, says Yeo, who has photographed not only the patients but the luxurious facilities. Full story...
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Yeo is not the only one. The desire is multiplied by the millions in her native Seoul, often called the world’s capital for plastic surgery. In a new exhibition on display in New York, Yeo showcases photographs that document the experience of plastic surgery in South Korea, where 20 percent of women have had some form of cosmetic work, compared to 5 percent of American women, according to widely cited data from the International Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons.
In raw numbers, Brazil performed the most procedures overall in 2013, followed by the United States, but the plastic surgery industry in South Korea is legion. The New Yorker profiled it earlier this year, reporting that among the reasons for getting surgery on a questionnaire to prospective patients was "preparing for a job," "wedding" and "regaining self-confidence." Patricia Marx, the author of the story, theorized that it's not surprising that a country that had such a miraculous economic turnaround would embrace cosmetic surgery.
After the Korean War, the country’s G.D.P. per capita ($64) was less than that of Somalia, and its citizens lived under an oppressive regime. Today, South Korea has the fourteenth-highest G.D.P. in the world. Is it really surprising, then, that a country that had the resilience to make itself over so thoroughly is also the capital of cosmetic about-faces?
Of course, many places have remade themselves economically and are not plastic surgery capitals, but there's no denying the role plastic surgery plays in the country's economy. South Korea has more than 2,000 plastic surgeons. Its medical tourism industry tripled its revenue from 2009 through 2012, rising to $453 million, Bloomberg News has reported. Much of that boom in foreign business is coming from China, but also Japan, Taiwan, Russia and the Middle East, says Yeo, who has photographed not only the patients but the luxurious facilities. Full story...
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