Park Min-joo is preparing to get her jawbone cut away and her cheekbones shaved. And she is still toying with the idea of having a large section of her gums cut out so that her mouth can be pushed back into her face.

In South Korea, where plastic surgery is so commonplace that doctors say it is "just another accessory", the 23-year-old office worker is succumbing to the craze.

"I have a complex about my round face so I want to make it slimmer, more like the celebrities I see on television," Ms Park says in a consultation room at the Faceline Clinic in the swanky Seoul suburb of Apgujong.

"Most of my friends have had this kind of surgery," she says, and she has saved the $10,000 (€6,800, £5,100) she needs to join them.

"I think that your appearance is really important because people judge you on it. In Korea there is a saying that you get special treatment if you are pretty, and I read in the newspaper that better-looking; people make more money," Ms Park says.

Plastic surgery has become de rigueur in Korea, where people constantly talk about ol jjang, mom jjang - great face, great body

A survey found that 62 per cent of twentysomething women in greater Seoul had undergone some kind of enhancement. Even President Roh Moo-hyun has had double eyelid surgery, ostensibly for medical reasons.
 

Surgery has become a common high-school graduation or college entrance gift and now - after admission exams in November - is considered the perfect time to go under the knife.

"As society develops I think people are becoming more sensitive about how they look," says Lee Jin-soo, chief surgeon at the Faceline clinic, who is preparing to operate on Ms Park. "They think that plastic surgery is one of the easiest ways to improve their personal relations and to do better, to achieve more in society."

More than 80 per cent of 761 recruitment executives surveyed by JobKorea rec-ently said appearance was important in an interview.

With eyelid surgery and nose jobs now so standard, discerning customers such as Ms Park are opting for the "facial contouring" promoted at Faceline, an operation carried out through the mouth that leads to slimmer or shorter faces, or both.

"Koreans are often sensitive about the size of their faces and they think small faces are much more beautiful and look more innocent," Dr Lee says, adding that the trend these days is for a "baby face" like that of Kim Tae-hee, one of Korea's most popular actresses.

Propelled by the popularity of its films and music across Asia, Korea is positioning itself as a centre for plastic surgery. The government, which has made such surgery tax deductible, is allocating Won1.2bn ($1.3m, €864m, £642m) to market Korea as a cosmetic surgery destination.

Plastic surgery in Korea is about half the price of that in Japan, and the quality is much better than in China, surgeons say. Double eyelid surgery costs between $1,100 and $1,600 in Korea, compared with $1,700 in Thailand and $1,900 in Japan, the health ministry says.

But some Koreans worry about the trend. "Society is encouraging women to go under the knife by creating an illusion that beauty can get you anything," says Jung Eun-ji of Korean Womenlink, an activist group. "Instead of improving their skills, they often turn to the quick solution: plastic surgery."

Source : The Financial Times Limited 2008