From the advertisements on TV, magazines and everywhere else, it's very obvious that the Korean society is obsessed with how one looks. It's really sad that this society judges one on how fair his or her skin is, how high and tailored the nose looks, or how one's face is shaped. The criteria also include one's weight and height. In this country, one's age or annual income may not be as confidential as how many kilos one tips on the weighing scale, or how many centimeters (not inches!) you hover above ground (or above everyone else!). Here, it's beauty over brains.
This is the reason why the cosmetic surgery industry in Korea flourishes, and these plastic surgery clinics earn (and a lot!) from one's insecurity, vanity, or from the pressure from society!
And talking about these clinics, I was just passing through Sinsa Station in Gangnam-gu one morning and I was just amused by the billboards advertising these clinics that show the 'before' and 'after' appearances of some individuals, who, after their 'transformation', must have received a lot of compliments from their friends, or must have landed him or her some coveted employment.
But I also wondered, would I want to let people know how I looked like before my cosmetic surgery? Hmm. Would you?
As I went down the stairs and into the subway station, I could not escape these advertisements as the walls of the station were all covered with these, and all of them were very enticing! If I were looking for a plastic surgery clinic that day, I would have chosen one right at the stairs near Exit Number 2! Ha-ha-ha!
And even on the subway platform, there were still posters, and even inside the train, there was one more! No one could ever escape them!
The Sinsa-dong area is actually known for these clinics, and I am thinking of perhaps visiting one out of curiosity. I wonder what the doctor would want to 'transform' in my face? Ha-ha-ha!
Maybe, I could ask him to copy the nose or the chin of this or that Korean celebrity from a drama or some member of a k-pop boy band. By the way, most of the faces I see on Korean television may have been altered one way or another by just looking at the not-so-natural impression of their faces.
Last week, I read in the news of a death of a young Korean woman who died after undergoing plastic surgery. Geez. The price of a personal beautification project is not anymore quantified in Korean won, but is paid with one's life.
And sometimes, when I ride the subway, I can tell whether he or she has something altered. Sometimes, some surgeries are botched, one's face would now look like a Halloween mask. Others would have too many a surgery that her face now looks like a science project. I remember one night, while I was walking around my neighborhood in Hannam-dong, I saw a Korean woman, who must have been in her late 40s or early 50s, and I thought for a moment that she looked like the Korean version of Jocelyn Wildenstein. (If you don't know who she is, just Google her, and you'll find out what I'm talking about.) Even under limited lighting, that woman's face looked scary.
Generally, Koreans are good-looking, (although the most beautiful woman I saw in Korea was not Korean) but with these clinics that have turned into factories producing new, good-looking faces every day, it's getting difficult to guess which ones are natural or "Made in Sinsa-dong". Did this obsession to look pretty and handsome come from the country's economic advancement which started a generation ago?
One married Korean friend once told me that once their baby was born, they would have to save money for their child's plastic surgery. Although I admire the couple for advance financial planning, I was shocked by their priorities. Until now, I guess not everyone believes that 'beauty is just skin deep'. And with the double-jaw surgery, where one's jaw and chin are painfully chiseled to achieve the preferred 'V'-line shaped face, beauty is now bone deep! I can't imagine the pain anyone would go through (and the money it would cost!) just to change his or her face, which reminds of the movie Face/Off, where Nicolas Cage switched faces with John Travolta, and just like a horribly botched surgery, one of them ended up dead.
But on that day at Sinsa Station, as I looked at those 'before' and 'after' faces, I could see that, to make them look a lot better in the 'after' photos, the lighting was brighter, the hair and make-up were definitely done, and perhaps, some digital retouching was involved. No wonder many are enticed and convinced.
On my next visit to the Sinsa-dong area, I am sure to see these big billboards again, and maybe, just maybe, out of curiosity, I should visit one of these 'face' shops and, well, shop for a new face. Ha-ha-ha! :-)
...definitely not the K-pop celebrities! Ha-ha-ha!
On my first venture to Namdaemun Market during my first weekend in Seoul as a tourist, I got lost. I think I got out on the wrong exit and ended up on the opposite side. I remember asking for help twice, but since both Korean women didn't speak English (and I couldn't speak survival Korean then!), I just had to find my way back to the correct exit. Fortunately, I was able to buy the souvenirs I had to bring back home: 'Korea' t-shirts, traditional Korean fans and of course, a poster of a popular Korean actor.
Since then, I return to Namdaemun Market every once in a while to buy a few more souvenirs and presents to bring home: ginseng tea and korean drama actor calendars.
But every time I'm in the area, I noticed that most tourists and shoppers don't flock at the souvenir shops or the bag shops or the clothes shops. They flock at the Korean food stalls!
Yes, the most popular guys in the Namdaemun Market are not your favorite K-pop stars or Korean actors and actresses! They are the Korean food vendors!
Just go to the Namdaemun Gate 2 and you will see a long queue of foreign tourists and locals waiting for their turn to get some hotteok or some bindaetteok.
And if you enter through Gate 2, that mandu stall on your left is also a favorite spot, where the Korean lady displays her mandu (Korean dumplings) of all sizes!
Next to that stall is a small bindae-tteok or bindae-duk restaurant, which is also popular to the local office employees during lunch time. The lines could be long during a weekday, but a couple of months ago, my friends Jenny, Sophie and I were lucky to enjoy a meal in this restaurant during a holiday. Bindae-tteok is a pan fried dish with veggies and mung beans inside. How I wanted to describe it, but doing it would just make me drool while I'm writing this. Ha-ha-ha! When eaten warm, it's really yummy, yummy, yummy!
And on the other side of Namdaemun Market, near Exit 5 of the Hoehyeon Station (Namdaemun Station), another shop attended by a few Korean ajummas, sells hwang mandu (big-sized mandu). This shop also enjoys a long line of regular customers mixed with tourists. And whenever I am in the area, I usually buy a box of mandu (only KRW 6,000 of ten big pieces!) only when there's no long line!
But my favorite stall of all, since I have a sweet tooth, is that of the hotteok guys (with green aprons) on that alley leading to the Shinsegae Department store, or if I were coming from Gate 2 of Namdaemun Market, I turn left at the first alley and follow the wafting of the hotteok frying at the next mini-intersection. Hotteok is another pan fried delicacy which is filled with cinnamon, melted brown sugar and sliced nuts. I usually buy two because one is never enough! And it's only KRW 1,000 each! Happiness could be that cheap! Ha-ha-ha!
Sometimes, the lines in front of these guys are so long, the ajumma selling bags at the next stall complains because the hotteok customers cover her shop. Ha-ha-ha! Everyone has to re-align the line.
So, the next time you're walking through the alleys of the Namdaemun Market, observe where shoppers, locals and tourists actually flock, and you can immediately tell that K-pop stars and Korean celebrities are not the most popular people in Namdaemun Market.
The most popular guys are actually the ones who give everyone the most memorable experience of enjoying these Korean delicacies!
I will see you all there!
