[ Part 1 ] Does Plastic Surgery Prove That North and South Korea Share the Same DNA?

When talking about beauty, the first country that naturally comes to mind is South Korea. Now, K-beauty does not only mean cosmetics. It has become an industry and a lifestyle that encompasses skincare, makeup, aesthetic medicine, and the culture of self-management. Many people say that K-beauty naturally grew alongside K-content as it captured the hearts of people around the world. Of course, this is true. However, the perspective on K-beauty needs to be expanded a bit further. This is because K-beauty is not an industry that was made suddenly one day, but is closer to a result grown upon the cultural tendencies that the people of the Korean Peninsula have shared for a long time.

The root of this thought lies in my childhood memories - specifically, my middle school days spent in North Korea. Even in those days, trends were surprisingly fast. When bell-bottom pants became trendy, I went through great trouble to get a pair from my cousin living in Chongjin to wear them, but the streets had already changed to “Mong-baji” (tapered pants). Those pants, which became narrower from the hips toward the ankles, instantly became the new trend and occupied the entire street.

At that time, the popular older girls followed makeup trends faster than anyone else, applying white foundation and painting their lips red. Double eyelid surgeries and eyebrow tattoos were also common. Numerous students around them wanted to dress up and decorate themselves like those older girls. To the teenagers of that time, wearing makeup was not simply a matter of becoming pretty, but a symbol of becoming an adult and an object of envy. What is interesting is that in front of grooming and dressing up, the difference between the rich and the poor was not big. Even if their financial situations were difficult, the desire to become pretty was no different. People who watched South Korean and American dramas copied the actors’ attire, and those who did not watch them copied the people who did. Trends spread quickly from person to person like that.

When I first set foot in South Korea in 2010, the society unfolding before my eyes was a completely different world. The overflowing food, the fast-moving capitalist society, and the unfamiliar foreign words and culture were difficult to adapt to easily. However, there was exactly one thing that was not unfamiliar at all. It was the culture of grooming and decorating oneself.

In every bustling district, cosmetic stores, dermatologists, and plastic surgery clinics were lined up, and people were investing a lot of time and cost into their appearance and self-management. Their skin tones were a bit brighter, but their attitude of putting effort into making a better appearance was surprisingly similar to the people I had seen in North Korea. It was the moment proving the fact that even though the South and the North have lived under different systems, they still share similar cultural tendencies.

Then, why are the people of the Korean Peninsula so enthusiastic about beauty? I intend to unravel that answer in the next article.