Golden Week: Japanese flock to South Korea for affordable plastic surgery

According to an Agence France Presse report earlier this week, many Japanese were planning to spend their Golden Week holiday in South Korea getting plastic surgery:

Seoul – It’s not everyone’s idea of a holiday, but some South Korean clinics are cashing in as Japanese use their Golden Week break for cosmetic surgery overseas.

The long holiday gives patients a chance to let facial swellings shrink before they have to return to work, and prices in Seoul are said to be half those charged for similar treatments in Japan.

Ana Clinic in southern Seoul told AFP it had appointments with about 40 Japanese during the Golden Week, compared to the weekly average of 20 from that country.

Theme Dermatologist clinic has some 30 Japanese patients this week, five to six times higher than average, according to Segye Ilbo newspaper.

Double-eyelid surgery and nose jobs are among the most popular treatments for foreign clients, and face-lifts and skin-whitening are also in demand.

Getting double-eyelid surgery might seem fun and cheap for Japanese women who hate having “small” non-western-looking eyes, but things can go horribly wrong sometimes, as this TV news report shows:

The Korean woman in the video with botched double-eyelid surgery has one eye that opens much more than the other, and one of her eyelids cannot entirely close. Quite a horror story, but rare cases such as the one shown are hardly enough to convince many customers not to get the procedure….