Skin-deep surgery's just swell

• Source: Global Times
• [13:31 June 21 2010]
• Comments

Illustration: Liu Ting

By Du Qiongfang

Shen Juan, 45, though seen as one of the successful business women in China, often found she lacked confidence among younger staff members. But after the day she decided the wrinkles and bags under her eyes had to go so that she could feel confident, there was no looking back. Even the cost of the operations at 30,000 yuan ($3,660) went uncontested by family members and friends. For Shen was doing nothing unusual: just buying youth like many other middle-aged women in China do today.

The meteoric middle-class boom in this country is revealing several interesting facets, of which the makeover industry is proving to be representative of the changing culture.

No more are family, children and grandchildren the only source of happiness for women in their 40s and 50s. Rather a part of money so diligently saved over the years to help children buy and furnish the house, is being spent on expensive nips and tucks.

In 1994, plastic surgery was legalized in China and its evolution here followed a pattern seen nowhere else in the world. Though it was similar to Western makeover models in the beginning with Chinese undertaking surgery only on a need-to-have basis, this slowly changed. The age barriers that used to be there are fast disappearing as prosperity grows.

According to Jiang Shan, the dean cum general manager of Shanghai Time Plastic Surgery Hospital, the number of middle-aged and older people coming in for plastic to his hospital has increased by 40 percent in the past five years.