soukorbeauty

[soukorbeauty]

EPQ teacher’s suggestion

I’ve been using a website called Preceden to help me organise and keep track of my work my EPQ so far. It’s a timeline tracking my progress. However, my EPQ teacher asked me to create a planning timeline to make sure I set myself aims and deadlines. I will do so in this post.

Since I have to start handing in my EPQ in February 2019 and it’s now the end of February 2018, I have exactly one year to finish up. 

March-April : blog progression, focusing on articles, topics and evidence.

Mid April, I will be back from Korea with more material to work with. Hoping to get some footage and brochures from different plastic surgery clinics. If I do manage to get footage, I hope to edit and turn it into a vlog by the end of April or early May.

June-July : Continuation of blog

August : Begin focusing on dissertation and evaluation and answering the EPQ title and blog progression.

September : Citations, references, statistics all put into place 

October-November : blog progression and begin presentation 

December : Organise everything 

January - Feb : Getting teachers to check and more organising

This may be edited a few time throughout because there are still a lot of things to do. Blog post creation : 28/2/18

[soukorbeauty]

Makeup in South Korean society

In today’s society, physical appearance links to how responsible, well-off, and organised you are. This is a psychological reasoning. The reason why we think this way is because of what we’re being fed through the media. Usually in movies, the main character is usually attractive and is usually successful or will eventually end up successful. Perhaps thats why we depict aesthetically pleasing physical appearances to success. However, in South Korean society it is very important to look your best. As i’ve mentioned in my previous blogpost, it is a hyper-competitive country and having good looks gives a more competitive edge and better job prospects. However, what distinguishes South Korea’s makeup habits with the rest of the world makeup habits may come to a shock to some people.

Firstly, Koreans focuses more on skincare than makeup. Girls start young with their skincare regimens to maintain their youth and prevent wrinkles. It’s very normal to have up to 13 steps of daily skincare. However, the shocking part of Korea’s makeup habits is that girls usually start putting on makeup at the age of 10 nowadays. As mentioned in my post regarding Korean society, competition is very apparent in SK and it starts from an early age. Because the beauty industry is so strong and there’s such a high demand, makeup and skincare products are usually very affordable with many price ranges. Moreover, makeup and skincare is seen more like a necessity, unlike in the West where natural beauty and no makeup is becoming more popular.

Relating to my areas of studies of Politics, it’s a well known fact that Asian countries tend to be more conservative than the West. Conservatism is about preserving tradition and the old way of life. Women always had a traditional role of being the perfect woman, bearing children, being a good wife, looking good for men. However, the strong feminism that’s still rapidly growing today isn’t very apparent in Korea and the country is known to be one of the most Conservative Asian countries. Therefore, “looking good for men” is still very significant in SK and that mindset is still very much alive compared to the West’s “ I look good for myself, not to impress boys” mindset. Korean and Asian girls would usually say “I want to look good for you” to their boyfriends / husbands.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gW4YbpMBmRM

[soukorbeauty]

I’ve visited Seoul a couple of times during the progression of my blog.

I will be linking pictures and physical evidence i’ve gathered during my stay in Seoul to support my statements and also talk about my experience during my visit. This will be my most favourite sub-category of this blog because I’m in love with Seoul and I love the culture, food, fashion and traditions there. 

[soukorbeauty]

Attitude towards cosmetic surgery in South Korea vs the West

By some estimates, South Korea has the higher cosmetic surgery procedures done per capita. However, the country with the most procedures done is America. Statistics shows that there were 980,000 recorded operations in 2014. That's 20 procedures per 1,000 people, putting it ahead of the US's 13 procedures per 1,000. 

So.. why is cosmetic surgery so prevalent in South Korea?

First of all, there are many factors that contribute to the country’s unfazed attitude towards cosmetic surgery as compared to the west. One of the main reasons being it’s high population density. South Korea has a population of 51,635,256 with an area of 100,210㎢ and a population density of 509.2 people / ㎢. Competition is alive and well and due to the high population density. Picture this, you’re in a highly competitive environment with so many people looking for the same successes as you. Many of them may have similar skills and knowledge as you, may have the same dreams as you. But, they look better than you. It is also widely agreed that better looking people have an advantage in the job market because in today’s society, marketing and image is everything. Your photo will be attached to your resume. A company is going through resumes and narrows down between you and another young man/woman who looks a lot better than you. Both of your skills and qualifications are more or less on par. Who is the company more likely to choose? The attractive one of course. Especially in South Korea where job discrimination is apparent regarding appearance. Required fields when applying for a job may include details of height and weight. Even though many applicants find this field redundant, they felt like if they left them blank it would put them in a a disadvantage. Before people apply for jobs and attach their pictures for their resumes, they would go out of their way to get their picture taken and edited to make them appear more physically attractive. There has also been statistics that show that cosmetic surgery actually improved job prospects. As the country is hyper competitive, there’s a uniform preference for certain looks. Moreover, as the country has a conformist society, imitating others is not frowned upon. South Korea’s homogenous society is also another factor that contributes to the prevalence of cosmetic surgery. Compared to the US, US is much more ethically diverse and physically spread out, so the pressure is not the same. 

Difference between South Korea and the West 

In the West, people are encouraged and glorified to be different, unique, be their own person. In SK, looking the same is not a bad thing. In fact, it’s actually a good thing due to their conformist society and expectations of how one should look and behave. Moreover, for example in the US, the population is so ethically diverse compared to homogenous South Korea. The need for looking better than others is not needed in US as much compared to SK. Beauty standards are also drastically different between Asia and the West which I will talk about in another separate post. Many argue that Asians get procedures done to look more ‘western’ while others argue it’s just another beauty trait. Westerners tend to view South Korea’s cool attitude towards cosmetic surgery as bizarre while other Asian countries view it similarly to SK. Perhaps it’s because there is a hint of desire wanting to “look more Western”. However, this is debatable because I will be talking about the establishment of South Korea’s own personality and presence in the world in another blogpost. 

My thoughts on the prevalence of cosmetic surgery in South Korea

Though such prevalence is obvious in the country, it is not necessarily a bad thing to have the procedures done or wanting to get it done. Many people do it for the sake of confidence and comfort in their own skin and emotional well-being. However, the prevalence of it also addressed how the importance of appearance has impacted society. Job discrimination against appearance is very apparent in the SK job market and due to the increase in popularity and demand for cosmetic surgeries in South Korea, there has also been an increase in illegal brokers bringing foreigners to unestablished surgeons to perform surgeries, resulting in many horrible cases of failed and botched surgeries. Overall, the main issue is that this prevalence has led to uncertainties in employment, birth of new survival strategies and threats and enticement coexisting. 

http://kosis.kr/conts/nsportalStats/nsportalStats_0102Body.jsp?menuId=10&NUM=

http://www.humanrightskorea.org/2014/korean-job-applications-forms-discrimination-appearance-background-bodyweight/

https://www.koreaexpose.com/plastic-surgery-popular-south-korea-history/

https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2013/12/26/when-beauty-is-not-exactly-truth/in-south-korea-plastic-surgery-is-part-of-doing-business

[soukorbeauty]

What I’ve learned throughout this project :

This post will be constantly updated as I update my blog from time to time. I will keep track of all the skills I’ve picked up and knowledge I’ve gained and hope to share them all with you.

10th January 2018 - Birth of this blog. I never really had a blog before so I was struggling to make it look pretty and work out its functionalities. It took me a long time to figure out how to sub-categorize my posts and keep tags to help me organize my work. When I finally found a theme that I liked, I had to tweak the HTML to suit my likings and I found it a little difficult at first because there were so many numbers and letters and I’ve never coded before. However, I learned that I had to just follow to exact format and change the margins a little here and there to make things work. Because I enjoy making things look pretty and organizing myself, i didn’t really find this difficult or a chore. However, I learned to be meticulous because if one letter is off, the whole blog may crash. I learned it the hard way when I forgot to keep a copy of my tweaked HTML while tweaking it other times. When I updated my blog and refreshed the page, it wouldn’t load and I did not have a copy of the previous HTML. Therefore, my previous tweaks were affected and i couldn’t find them and I had to do it all over again D:

[soukorbeauty]

Plastic surgery vs cosmetic surgery

It’s shocking to see how many people don’t know the difference between the two. Even when you google plastic surgery, you will most likely be lead to websites dedicated to cosmetic surgery. Plastic surgery is dedicated to the reconstruction of facial and body defects, including burns, birth disorders, trauma. It’s intended to reconstruct and correct dysfunctional areas of the body to what’s deemed “normal”.

Whereas cosmetic surgery is focused on enhancing the appearance. Improving symmetry, aesthetic appeal are the main goals. Cosmetic surgery can be done to all parts of the external body.

In a way, plastic surgeons are also cosmetic surgeons as cosmetic surgery is a part of their training. It takes 150 cosmetic surgery cases to graduate. However, cosmetic surgery as a sub-category isn’t small as well. Cosmetic surgery training requires another whole different set of training, differing from plastic surgery. I’ve attached a picture below if my words aren’t making sense. 

https://www.americanboardcosmeticsurgery.org/patient-resources/cosmetic-surgery-vs-plastic-surgery/

[soukorbeauty]

What is an “ulzzang”?

얼짱 (eol-jjang) literally translates to “best face” in Korean. A girl or guy that’s doe-eyed, has fair porcelain skin, a small face, petite body and a sharp nose bridge call themselves “ulzzangs”. Their main community and audience lies on the internet as many people adore their features and finds it aesthetically pleasing to look at their pictures. This trend as been increasingly popular in South East Asian countries where people would get inspired by these faces online and try to mimic or learn from them. Ulzzangs usually have a large following base on social media and mainly post “selcas” (selfie in Korean) daily that’s very different from the way Westerners, or in fact, everybody not Asian.. take their selfies. Generally, the Asian beauty standard is to have big eyes, a small nose, small doll-like lips and a V line chin and jaw. Even though most, if not all Ulzzangs have those features already, they would take their selfies from an angle to emphasise these features by holding their phones up from the highest point their arms can reach and click! This angle helps to make the facial ratio 3:2:1 with the eye, nose and lips.  

@_plumfloral // instagram

Here’s an example of what a typical “ulzzang” would look like. Alluring eyes, smooth and pale skin, a small face with a V-line. 

While hunting for a perfect example selfie (lol) I stumbled upon many instagram, pinterest, twitter, tumblr accounts that dedicate their account for re-posting pictures of these people. Even crazier, they have tens and thousands of followers! This shows that these Korean girls gain a lot of attention and adoring followers. I was going through this instagram account and look at this.. lol

@ulzzangasiaofficial // instagram

Look at the first row carefully.. guess what????? They’re all different people. Then look at the second row. They’re all different too. This evidently shows that the standards for being an “ulzzang” is pretty narrow. You have to look a certain way to be considered having the “the best face”. 

https://sokoglam.com/blogs/news/14438997-seoul-style-the-art-of-the-korean-selfie-meet-the-selca

https://web.archive.org/web/20160718005304/http://test.thedailyant.mobi/Main/Korea-Ulzzang-subculture-joins-list-of-impossible-beauty-obsessions

https://www.instagram.com/ulzzangasiaofficial/?hl=en

https://www.instagram.com/_plumfloral/?hl=en

[soukorbeauty]

Initial idea to the final question

I have always been intrigued with visual aesthetics along with Asian studies on countries that still have considerably deep roots to their traditions despite the modernity of our world today. South Korea was the perfect country to fulfil that position as it’s known to be one of the most homogenous countries in the world along with it’s strong emphasis on beauty standards and expectations within the country. Moreover, South Korea has such a unique and individual character that it has made itself stand out in the fashion and beauty industry in the world. Additionally, “K-Pop” has also made it huge in the music industry worldwide. It has brought a lot of attention and tourism to the country, shaping it to be what it is today. By researching on the beauty standards in South Korea, it would allow me to learn about the country’s society, culture, way of life, economy because beauty and aesthetics play such a big part in the South Korean society, it helps me learn more about the country itself and why it’s how it is. Another important aspect to my fascination to this topic is the comparison between Western and Asian beauty standards. This EPQ will mainly focus on :

Visual expectations in South Korean society 

Asian vs Western way of life

Neighbouring countries and their involvement with beauty tourism in SK.

Social norms in South Korea.

K-Pop.

[soukorbeauty]

10th January 2018

Drafting and ideas have been done prior the existence of this blog and it’s in a separate document. Uploads and reblogs on this blog will be part of my EPQ and I will be keeping track of my progress and thought process on this blog as well. Once my EPQ has been submitted, this blog will go public and I hope to help others who are interested in this topic to learn something. Reblogs are sources and visual evidence and all of them are sourced from articles and journals. Text posts and uploads will be my own opinion, statements, ideas and personal encounters unless stated.