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Plastic Surgery Shapes up As No. 4 Favourite Expense of Chinese
April 25, 2011

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rheaseo25
9:24am Apr 28, 2011

This recent NY Times article explores the growing demand for cosmetic surgery in China, a trend incentivized by high reimbursement, little medical regulation and supported by a young, vain and wealthy clientele.

http://www.esteemstudio.com.au


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Beijing. Even in a stark hospital robe, her face stripped of makeup and scored with purple lines by her surgeon, the woman who called herself Devil embodied a beauty widely admired here - large eyes, delicate nose, sculpted cheekbones.

But the 22-year-old television reporter found her own jawline too square, so she was having it reshaped at a private hospital in Beijing for about US$6,000 (S$7,400). Her boyfriend, a 29-year-old businessman, was picking up the bill.

'I'm not nervous at all,' she said as she awaited surgery at EverCare Aikang hospital. 'I will look more sophisticated and exquisite.'

The breathtaking pace of transformation for upwardly mobile Chinese - who have moved from bicycles to cars, villages to cities, housebound holidays to ski vacations - now extends to faces.

In just a decade, plastic surgery has become the fourth most popular way to spend discretionary income here, said Health Vice-Minister Ma Xiaowei. Only houses, cars and travel rank higher.

No official figures exist, but the International Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery noted in 2009 that China was behind only the United States and Brazil worldwide, with more than two million such operations a year.

The number is doubling every year, Ma said at a conference last November.

'We must recognize that plastic and cosmetic surgery has become a common service, aimed at the masses,' he said. The industry generates an estimated US$2.3 billion in annual revenue.

Facelifts and wrinkle removal are in vogue here, just as in the West. But at EverCare, which runs a chain of cosmetic surgery facilities, two in five patients are in their 20s, said co-founder Li Bin, so the procedures requested often have nothing to do with age.

The most popular is one designed to make the eyes seem larger by adding a crease in the lid to form a double eyelid, said Zhao Zhenmin of the Chinese Association of Plastics and Aesthetics.

Patients include job seekers hoping to enhance their prospects in the workforce and teenagers for whom the surgery was a high school graduation present.

China's regulatory system has not kept up. Of 11 clinics or hospitals offering cosmetic or plastic surgery that were inspected late last year, Ma said, fewer than half met national standards.

Officials say new regulations will probably be issued this year.

Chen Xiaomeng, 25, said her double-eyelid surgery two months ago has made her look less sleepy. Five of her friends have opted for the procedure.

'Cosmetic surgery is now accepted in practically every household,' she said. 'It is not a big deal any more.'


NYT