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Urge: Naked World
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It's also not a very p.c. thing to discuss eyelid surgery in Asian communities, although it's heatedly whispered about and tips are traded back and forth. When Asians whisper "Does she or doesn't she?" they are talking not about hair color, but eyelid surgery. "After a while, you can tell who's had it done," says Caroline, "and people will say things like, 'Go to Taiwan, it's cheap!' Or, 'Don't go to Korea, they botch it!'"

Some, like Hie Shun, are thrilled it's a topic of conversation. "God, it's great to talk about this because you can't talk about these things with other Koreans, and my American friends just don't get it. When I got it done, my hairdresser, who's Korean, yelled at me, 'Who did this to you?' But a couple of weeks later, once my eyes 'settled,' she loved it."

Hie Shun, who is in her 30s and lives in Atlanta, says when she was younger, she wanted to change the shape of her eyes but eventually "got over it." Then it became largely an issue of makeup. "God, when I think about all the money I spent on makeup. I've never been able to wear mascara because my lashes point down and it would leave me with raccoon eyes."

Hie Shun says the surgery was "no big deal" and compares it to having a mole removed, or getting a makeover. "People think plastic surgery is going to hugely change you, but it won't. My mother was really worried that my face would change so much that people wouldn't recognize me. But it's a subtle subtle change. My boyfriend, who's American, can't even tell the difference."

While plastic surgeons are aware that the eyelid surgery is a topic of hot debate, they don't think that patients are trying to make themselves look more Caucasian, or trying to pass themselves off as Westerners. "The Asian eye is beautiful and they're only trying to enhance it. People have always wanted to accentuate their eye -- think of the Egyptians with their heavy kohl eyeliner and gold masks," says Dr. Robert Harvey, a board certified plastic surgeon and member of American Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery.

Yune says it is a misunderstoond procedure. "People think they're trying to change their culture but they're only trying to change their look." He says he is interested in having the surgery himself to "open up his eyes," but quips, "I haven't found a plastic surgeon that I completely trust!"

But Chang says changing your look is tantamount to erasing your culture. "The surgery is trying to get rid of something that is so distinctly ethnic. They're not trying to wipe out a race but a racial characteristic." In the premiere issue of Monolid, she wrote an essay about being confronted -- and subsequently horrified -- by relatives in Taiwan who urged her to get the surgery done. She wrote: "Just whose dictates of beauty were these anyway? ... Never has self-loathing been so utterly transformed into the sine qua non of the Asian aesthetic."

For Soo-Young Chin, an assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Southern California, having the eyelid surgery done at birth, as some parents choose to do to their children, is no different than circumcision or a clitorectomy. "When I was studying in Korea, I saw a lot of women with double lids. I asked one woman why, and she said it was because her whole generation was born that way. Obviously her mother had had it done to her at birth, and never told her. Well, she'll figure it out when she has kids of her own."

But she is also quick to point out that adults should be allowed to do whatever they want to their bodies. "It's not like the eradication of the surgery is going to cause racial tolerance. But I am critical of people who do the surgery ignorantly, without thinking of the consequences."

When I ask Chin if she would ever have it done, there is a long pause.

"Why?" she snaps. "Is there something wrong with my face? I think it's silly to think there is only one standard of beauty. And let's face it, most people aren't beautiful, they're just mediocre."

Caroline, who still greets most mornings with glue and a fork, reports that one of her eyes "flipped" on its own, so that she now has one fold. "When my eye spontaneously flipped, I loved it. I was so happy. Some days when my eyes are puffier the crease will be temporarily gone and I freak out. Then I lie down and put cold pads on my eyes to reduce it."

But after a lot of thought and some nudging from her mother ("Your cousin got it done, so-and-so got it done and they look great"), she decided not to have the surgery. "Sure I'd like another fold, a matched set. But as time goes on, you get used to your face. And having lived with my eyes for this long, it doesn't matter anymore. What you see is what you get it. And I'm just glad I'm 100 percent me."
salon.com | Feb. 16, 2000

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