- Korea is a highly competitive workplace.
It's super competitive for students.
- You have to have perfect grades, the perfect looks.
- Everyone there talks about beauty constantly,
and they tell you straight to your face that you're ugly,
or that you should get plastic surgery.
- That's why people feel like it's a good
career move to get plastic surgery.
- What we're doing today is sort of recreating
this practice that's very common in Korea,
but in a way that's not permanent.
Really, a sort of sliding door's potential second reality
if I had chosen to alter the way I look.
- So, I am a quarter Korean and I lived in the south
of South Korea in a city called Daegu for a year,
and I saw a lot of shit when I was there.
All of the subways are plastered with banner ads
that say you should get plastic surgery.
I actually had an article that I wrote about on BuzzFeed
that also went viral on The Daily Mail
where the headline was literally
"Too fat, too tall, and too dark
"To be beautiful in South Korea."
and that's honestly how I felt.
- When I was a kid I felt like my eyes were small
because I didn't have double eyelids.
I had a couple of relatives suggest
that I get a double eyelid surgery.
In some ways, I think about it, and I'm like,
"That's messed up."
In other ways it was an act of concern and love.
- To grow up in a society and a culture that's very
frank about the way you look, changes the way you perceive
your personal relationship with beauty.
First time I went to Korea, all of my mom's friends there
looked at me right when I got off and they said,
"Well, your son could get the eye surgery, and a nose job,
"And get his face smaller."
I had a lot of insecurities about that.
I thought, "Oh, maybe it's because I am ugly.
"Maybe it's because they want me to look a certain way."
Fast forward to now when my mom, to the same friends,
shows videos of me and they all say,
"Oh, your son is so handsome.
"Oh, there's nothing wrong with his face."
Do you know why the fuck they changed their minds?
Because I'm successful now.
So, if you think about it, a lot of Koreans
don't necessarily say you will look better because
you're white-looking, they're thinking you can survive
and succeed more if you change certain things
because that is what's happening in society.
- I'm really terrified of what this surgeon
is gonna say to me because I feel like
he's going to be my worst critic ever.
I've worked so hard to be okay with my body
and to feel like a Dove commercial inside
and I know this man is gonna tell me
that I'm so ugly and I'm terrified.
- Hi, it's very nice to meet you doctor.
- Nice to meet you.
- I would love to see what I think is sort of the standard
for a hot, young Korean guy.
- I'd love to know what I could do to make my face
as close to the mainstream beauty ideal currently in Korea.
- Okay, why don't you go ahead and put your hair
behind your ears a little bit.
- Oh, here we go.
Here we go, y'all.
- It'll be fine. (chuckles)
Nothing to be nervous about.
Let's have you turn to me a little bit.
- This is my potato face, y'all.
- There is sort of a stereotypical Korean beauty standard
that people try to adhere to.
There's a big focus on beauty around the eyes,
they're looking for noses that are a little bit
sharp and pointed at the end,
and finally, they're looking for a facial shape
which is more V-line and kind of has a slimmer look.
So, those I'd say would be the most
common facial aesthetic procedures.
- This is very intimate.
I just made it weird, sorry.
- Yeah, let's not make this weirder than it is.
Overall, very good-looking face.
Pretty girl.
I'd say your face looks very nice.
Great skin.
Good-looking guy.
You have good facial features.
Starting sort of from the top, down,
I think your brows look very good.
I think for your eyes, very common to get
the typical Asian double eyelid surgery.
I think your distance between your brow and your eyelash
looks pretty normal and healthy,
so I think a standard double eyelid would look nice.
Eyelids, I think double eyelids would be reasonable.
Maybe just make the eyes look a little bit bigger.
And your distance between your eyebrows
and your lash line here, little bit on the shorter side.
Going from there I would say your nose
from the front view looks a little bit wide to me,
and so I think narrowing it could also
give you a nice aesthetic.
For the rhinoplasty there would be two key things I would do
One would be to shave down that hump on the top,
and the second one would to work on that tip a little bit.
For the cheeks, either some fat grafting,
or even a cheek implant if you wan to have
a little bit more profile.
I would recommend considering some fat grafting,
which is to remove a little bit of fat
from other parts of your body, and put it into your cheeks
to make the cheeks a little bit softer-looking.
For the lower part of your face I think down here
you do have a little bit of fatty tissue in this area.
It's common for a lot of people, also.
So, I think that one thing you consider would be
to take out a little bit of buccal fat, which is to make
a small incision on the inside of the cheek.
Finally, for your jaw here.
Overall face shape is a little bit more on the round side.
Very typically, a lot of women in Korea are looking
for something that's a little bit more V-line.
So, a combination of botox and this, too,
kind of shrink that muscle, as well as potentially
shaving down this jaw a little bit,
I think would kind of give you
a little bit more of a V-shape.
- That wasn't as scary as I thought it would be.
It seems like a lot of the changes would be subtle.
- That was a long list of procedures to get me to point B.
- I'm glad to know that my face is mostly great.
I thought it would be like let's just do everything.
- But it is kind of scary for me to think that I might see
a better version of myself, so we'll see.
Got to get rid of this neck fat, y'all.
(upbeat music)
Holy shit, I'm scared.
I'm mainly worried that I'm gonna like it.
- Am I gonna look at it while it changes?
Oh, shit, okay, wait, wait, don't do it.
I'm really nervous now.
(ding)
(laughs)
- There's just something about it that's so derpy.
It definitely doesn't look like me.
It looks like an evil doppelganger.
So, I see how they gave me double eyelids,
but I'm surprised at how much I don't like them.
I like the defined jaw line.
I could probably achieve that by losing a couple pounds.
Yeah, I'm not a huge fan of the eyes.
Maybe it's just the Photoshop, but I just look dead.
I look dead inside.
- And.
(ding)
Huh.
It's kind of weird because it looks
vaguely like me, but not really.
It's not as drastic as I thought it was gonna be,
which is a little bit scary.
The subtlety of it is like no one would really know
that I had plastic surgery.
To be honest, I thought I'd be hotter,
and now that I'm not that hot, it's like I don't really
want to risk going under the knife to be 5% more hot.
5% more hot is not worth it.
25%, fuck yeah.
You know what would improve this is just if I had abs.
That would be better.
(ding)
- Holy shit!
Oh, my God.
My jaw is much smaller, the nose is thinner.
He's got a cute little face.
It looks good, it doesn't look bad.
He's the way nicer version of me,
I think, in terms of the face.
My biggest take-away is that I'm comfortable with looking
at this now without feeling shitty about myself.
But I also am not looking at this and thinking that I'm
more beautiful than this picture.
It's nice to see that this is a somewhat
natural option that I don't think people would look at
and think I looked like a freak or weird.
So, hopefully, if someone feels like this
will make them more confident and they get it,
if they're recognizable as a person,
I don't see the problem with it.
Maybe the one thing that's a little problematic is
we have to think as Koreans if we are ever so slightly
changing the way we think we should look.
I don't think that we should necessarily think
this looks better than this, right?
And I think that's what a lot of people
are currently suffering from is this idea that
I have to look more this way to be accepted.
- I don't think I'd want to adhere to a trend
and then not be able to go back on it.
You can even remove a tattoo, you can't remove a nose job.
- When I was in Korea I thought at some point
that if I got more plastic surgery I could
maybe look more Korean and fit in,
but now that I'm seeing what the plastic surgery
would be, I'm realizing that the parts of me that
don't fit in are the parts that make me unique.
- I think what it really comes down to is
we just need more this, right?
We just need more of our own natural faces in media.
And not to shit on or diss on people
who get plastic surgery.
As Asians we just need to diversify what we're seeing.
And it's not saying that this is bad,
it's just saying that only seeing this is bad.
- And everybody deserves to feel okay about who they are.
I guess I just like my face better than I thought.
- I don't need that to feel good about myself
or to make other people feel good about how they look.
So, I'm gonna keep my little eyes,
and my big nose, and my big face.
It's what my mama gave me, and she's hot.
(laughs)
- Why you sad?
Why you crying?
Why you cry, sexy Ashly?
Don't cry.
(jazz music)