Culture and Leisure

In search of beauty

by Carrie Lok

Going for a nip and tuck is no longer a taboo in Hong Kong.

Women and men who want to improve their looks and body curves are now more open to man-made beauty, and some mothers take their teenage daughters to clinics for touching up, specialist surgeons say.

Gordon Ma Fong-ying, vice president of the Hong Kong Society of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgeons, finds more people are opting for cosmetic surgery.
“Cosmetic surgery can complement your clothes, hair styles and appearances,” Ma said.

The use of scalpels and scissors for beauty, though still debatable in the city, has become the talk of the town when local actress and former beauty queen Natalie Ng Man-yan went public her recent surgical procedures to straighten her nose and slim her face.

Companies have also seized the opportunity to promote their cosmetic surgery tourism packages to South Korea, a popular place for surgical makeovers.

Yet, Ma said Hong Kong people were more conservative than foreigners and preferred the changes to be natural and subtle to keep them look fresh and young.

“Many of my patients told me that they didn’t want this and that. They said: ‘I don’t want to look too glamorous.’,” the plastic surgery specialist said.
He said foreigners would openly tell others who their psychiatrists and? plastic surgeons were. “But people in Hong Kong keep a lower profile towards cosmetology and cosmetic surgery.”

He said people wanted to have cosmetic surgery mainly because of rising living standards, more media coverage on the topic and influences from other countries like the United States.

Although no cosmetic surgery statistics are available in Hong Kong, the increase in the number of clients is still insignificant as compared to those in other developed countries, Ma said.

In Britain, for example, more than 28,900 cosmetic surgeries took place last year, about 170 per cent of the number in 2003, according to statistics from the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons.

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