Fighteeng!

The exports of Korean pop entertainment, curiously called the Korean Wave, have apparently devolved into such a slow simmer that national competitiveness is at stake, so what does Kim Chul-Joong, news columnist for the Chosun Ilbo suggest?

The next Korean wave: we should see more of this girl on the right than the girl, er I mean guy, on the left. Thank YOUUU!!!

Plastic surgery.  Yes, he thinks the next Wave should be making Korea’s infamous reputation in Asia of carving out double-eyelids with an x-acto knife famous across the globe. (Well, it’s not all that bad… I usually can’t tell, unless a Korean friend of the opposite sex explicitly points out to me how that girl had this or that part done.)

The Korean brand of beauty has evidently grown into a source of power for Korea’s national competitiveness. All of this has contributed to a 33 percent rise in the number of foreign patients in Korea this year.

The disdain some women have for other women with plastic surgery obviously haven’t dampened the growth of the industry, especially to Korea’s neighbors, and it sure hasn’t deterred Kim from advocating that cutting up faces and enhancing breasts should be a source of national pride, not that I have a problem with the latter.

The country must tap into the potential offered by this industry. It needs a strategy to link this trend to its beauty industry as a whole, much as the Champs Elysees in Paris evokes images of haute couture and is the source of new fashion trends and luxury goods exported around the world.

Hollywood, too, is world famous not only for its movie studios but for cosmetic surgery, dermatology clinics and stores selling luxury goods. The new cosmetic surgery techniques and beauty products that are created there are exported around the world.

Hmm… so what part of Korea can compare to Champs Elysees or Hollywood to flex its beauty muscles?

The posh stretch of Seoul connecting Sinsa-dong, Apkujeong-dong and Cheongdam-dong is home to dermatology and plastic surgery clinics, fitness centers and other beauty-related businesses. Fashion designers also own boutiques there, while other high-end stores sell accessories and cosmetics. It can very well be called the Korean beauty district. If this area can be developed into a symbol of Korea’s beauty industry, it has the potential to become an internationally recognized location.

Garosugil in Sinsadong probably comes to mind as anything remotely close to Champ Elysees.  If we stretch this belt of beauty all the way to Itaewon’s gay neighborhoods, then maybe this posh stretch will have more of a Hollywood feel to it, because isn’t it really the gay guys that validate women’s claim about what is fashionably beautiful or not?  And the reference to “other beauty-related businesses”? Well, that’s probably those where the non-gay men pay a lot of money to appreciate that beauty up close and personal. And by some accounts, that seems to already be internationally recognized. But I digress…

Right now, the Pusan International Film Festival is in full swing. Many movie stars and fans from across Asia have converged on the city also spelled Busan to enjoy the festival, enabling the port to reap the benefits of its image as East Asia’s movie capital. By the same token, Seoul’s beauty district could become the center of the Asian beauty industry if businesses can compete and thrive there, creating new products and trends.

OK, so I get what he’s saying… it’s feasible I suppose, but the government has already beat him to the punch.

The South Korean government designated the area from Apgujeongdong to Cheongdamdong — home to luxury brand fashion shops and two massive department stores — the country’s new fashion district last year, aiming to create “Korea’s own Champs-Elysees” after the famed boulevard in Paris.

But that may not be a great start, because Korea appears to have some serious competition to be the plastic surgery capital of the world… The Hungarians recently held a beauty contest for those with plastic surgery.  Well, to a regular guy like me…  fashion, plastic surgery, beauty… it’s all the same.  Whatever gets the ladies to come out in their mini-skirts in the winter as much in the summer is a positive step in the right direction.