With China’s gaokao (national college entrance exams) over, high school graduates are indulging in an interim period of leisure activities. Among the favorite endeavors is plastic surgery, with Chinese parents seeing it as an investment as they believe appearances play a part in career opportunities.

Li Weiwei, director of the cosmetic center at Beijing Tsinghua Changgung Hospital, told the Beijing Morning Post that she had had a full schedule recently. “My clients have gotten younger in recent years,” she said, referring to the influx of 17- to 18-year-old patients.

Double eyelid surgery accounts for the majority of plastic surgery appointments booked by Li’s patients, with 70 percent. With bigger eyes, patients believe they look more energetic, and hence will have greater chances in the job market — and, for girls, in the boyfriend market as well. The remaining 30 percent seek nose reshaping and implant surgeries. 

Li said college students, in contrast, were more cautious about getting on the surgery table, preferring micro plastic surgery (such as face-thinning injections, skin whitening and hyaluronic acid nose fillers) to regular plastic surgery.

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Owing to the lower costs in China compared to other countries, overseas Chinese students also return to their homeland for cosmetic treatment. 

Last year, Wang Yongqian, deputy director of the Orthopedic Department at the Plastic Surgery Hospital affiliated with the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, reported that the hospital conducted several thousand plastic surgery operations during the summer holidays.

“There are students who take celebrities’ photos and ask for similar faces. One girl wanted her eyes to look like Park Chan Yeol’s, one of the boys in the Korean idol group, EXO. I persuaded her to give up that idea,” Wang said, according to Beijing Today.

Boys are not exempt from such pressures. Often visiting in groups, Li said boys typically chose someone to be a guinea pig before the remaining group members underwent procedures. (sab/kes)