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Urge: Naked World
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The surgery is quick but expensive -- about $3,500 -- and the recovery, as with most plastic surgeries, can be painful. Hie Shun, a recovery room nurse in her 30s who had it done last year, says she had to sleep in a semi-standing position and "when you lay down, it feels like the swelling is burying you." While some people truly require eye surgery for drooping eyelids that can obscure vision, why go through all this?

Mary Andres, a clinical psychologist and professor at the University of Southern California, offers two explanations. Altering the eyelids is one way for Asians to distinguish themselves from their peers. "If you're Asian and work in an all-Asian office and you dye your hair blond, it's going to make you look different from everyone else. So you're not necessarily trying to make yourself look Caucasian."

Another theory, says Andres, is that the surgery is an indicator of internalized racism. "This surgery is the antithesis of self-esteem, when you don't like who you are and how you look." She pauses for a moment. "You know, I really don't see why people are doing this. It's not like they have a goiter they have to hide from the world."

But some may feel they do. The eye is the Asian feature most often reduced to a caricature in popular culture. "Think of Charlie Chan movies or the Mickey Rooney character in 'Breakfast at Tiffany's,'" says Haiken, the author of "Venus Envy." "Those were awful, so it's not surprising that eyes are the one feature that Asians want to change. Most people probably don't have a conscious desire to look white, but there's such a history of racism and prejudice against Asians in this country."

And on the playground. "The first thing kids do in school is make fun of your eyes," says Chang of Monolid. "They'll stick their fingers under their eyes and pull them until they're slanted. In books, heroines always have big eyes and the villains always have small, piggy eyes. These little things do affect you."

All of which can consciously -- or subconsciously -- inspire someone to get plastic surgery. As Heather, 21, explains in halting English: "Sometimes Asian eyes look cold or hard. I look warmer after surgery. My family likes it. I look smooth. My friends have done it and they really like it. We don't want to be American. We just want to have bigger eyes."

In many Asian communities, the surgery is seen almost as a rite of passage for teens and young adults. Or as Haiken puts it, it's the Asian equivalent of Jews getting nose jobs for their 16th birthday. Many choose to go abroad to Taiwan or Korea to have it done. Yune says 90 percent of his blepharoplasty clients are female, with the majority of high school or college age. Likewise, the number of blepharoplasties he performs jumps during winter break and the summer. And more often than not, it's accompanied by subtle -- or not so subtle -- pressure from parents.

Next page | Most people aren't beautiful, they're just mediocre"