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[NPR] The Many Stories Behind Double-Eyelid Surgery

November 19, 2014

 

A cluster of plastic surgery clinics in Apgujeong-dong, southern Seoul. Doctors stress that jaw realignment should not be considered as a cosmetic surgery procedure. (Korea Times file)

A cluster of plastic surgery clinics in Apgujeong-dong, southern Seoul. Doctors stress that jaw realignment should not be considered as a cosmetic surgery procedure. (Korea Times file)

[NPR]

A lot of assumptions are made about why people undergo double-eyelid surgery. Assumptions like: They wanted to look more white, or they wanted to look less Asian.

But individual stories reveal more minute, more complicated motivations: Do people change their eyes in the pursuit of love, like Shima Kito, the Japanese man in Boston who in 1926 altered his eyes, nose and lower lip so he could marry his white girlfriend? Or are they like Julie Chen, who got the surgery when she was 25 hoping for a career break? Or something else?

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