Plastic surgery required to enter China pageant

By Mark Magnier
Los Angeles Times

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Organizers of a new beauty pageant here believe artificial breasts and medically sculpted butts not only shouldn't be hidden away, they're something to brag about. Welcome to the brave new China, which is making history with what it claims is the world's first Miss Plastic Surgery contest.

"Naturals," with their God-given looks, have no place here. This stage belongs to people who have suffered for their beauty and now live beyond the cutting edge. All nationalities are welcome, but contestants must show a doctor's certificate at the door.

At a news conference announcing the contest, to be held in early November, a host of beauty- and cosmetic-industry luminaries were trotted out. There is no shortage of them in a nation where plastic surgery is a runaway hit.

"To us doctors, altering beauty is a very natural thing," Zhao Xiaozhong, a medical professor and industry expert, told journalists. "When you do sports, you alter your muscles. We do the same thing through surgery."

Then came the moment everyone was waiting for: a peek at a genuine artificial beauty. "Down in front!" yelled one cameraman as the lithe Lu Xiaoyu, 23, took the stage to the oohs and ahhs, applause and neck-craning of several dozen reporters.

"I hope this contest helps people learn about plastic surgery," the former farm girl from Hebei province said. "I hope to see a day when it's so commonly done we'll no longer use the term 'artificial beauty.' "

"Do you have scars, and will you show them at the pageant?" one inquiring mind wanted to know.

"I'd be willing to," Lu responded as several cameras flashed.

Lu, who has large eyes and curly brown hair — thanks to dye and a permanent — said she had wanted plastic surgery since childhood. Everyone else in her family was good-looking, she said, and she felt like the ugly duckling.

A few years ago, she left her hometown, with its backbreaking farm work and peasants, for Tianjin, a city just outside Beijing. There she landed a job in a beauty salon, where she decided to revamp her nose, add dimples and creased eyelids, and otherwise reshape her face, all with the help of her employer.
 
"I feel like I'm living in a dream," she said. "Now my parents say, 'We finally look like we're from the same family.' "

Since the contest was announced, Lu has been joined by more than 30 Miss Plastic Surgery hopefuls from as far away as New York, Malaysia, South Korea and the vast reaches of China, all keen to nab the title and the $1,200 prize money.

Although that's hardly enough for a tummy tuck, the real lure is publicity. The pageant will be televised and the winner is promised a role in a planned Chinese TV drama in which every actor or actress boasts man-made charms.

Much of the credit for the world's first plastic surgery showdown goes to Yang Yuan, a leggy 18-year-old with hennaed hair. She created a stir last year when she underwent 11 surgeries, at a cost of $13,000. Her goal was to enter the Miss Intercontinental beauty contest, also sponsored by Beijing Culture, but she was disqualified when someone noticed her picture in a before-and-after surgery ad.

A tuck here and there is all right, the pageant producers argued, but Yang had changed her entire face. Yang wept, cried foul, then called her lawyer and filed a $6,000 lawsuit charging psychological damage. The court showed little sympathy.

But faster than you can say "Botox," the pageant company created this contest, built around the sculpted body arts. "We want to give them a forum of their own," organizer Zhao Chaofeng said.

Having knocked down the door for artificial beauties, Yang ultimately decided not to cross the threshold.

"I'm not entering this contest," she said as she sat in the clinic where she had her face redone, dressed in denim hot pants and a sleeveless brown shirt. "The committee is treating me like a ball they can kick around."

Despite the high-profile no-show, interest in the pageant has far exceeded expectations, befitting a country that has embraced plastic surgery with gusto. The industry has surged from almost nothing a few decades ago to a $2.4-billion business growing by an estimated 20 percent a year.

Today, many young women who choose to have cosmetic surgery want a more classically Western look. Creased eyelids, thinner noses and larger breasts are among the biggest sellers.

This has prompted traditionalists and women's rights groups to fret that China is losing its soul in the headlong embrace of all things foreign.

"We're losing diversity in the rush for a global beauty standard," Renmin University sociologist Li Lulu said. "If everyone starts looking the same, it will be a pretty dull world."

In China's highly competitive society, cosmetic make-overs are often seen as a way to earn more money, get a better job, even find a wealthy husband.

"I'm not looking for a sugar daddy, but I hear good looks may boost your salary by 30 percent," said Yang.

The quest is not without peril. In a case reported this spring in the newspaper Heilongjiang, businessman Jian Feng married a woman from Qingdao without realizing she'd had a surgical overhaul. When an "amazingly ugly" child arrived in 2003, Jian initially accused his wife of infidelity, then divorced her, obtaining a $120,000 settlement for misrepresentation and "lost opportunities" — namely, that he could have married someone else.

The pageant is great publicity for the surgeons, who appear to have their sights on a wider audience at a time when China seems to be taking over every other global industry.

"We're already seeing Koreans and Japanese come over for operations," and Europeans and Americans could follow, said Shi Sanba, 54, president of Beijing's MengNiHuan surgical clinic, running down her price list, which ranges from $1,200 for a simple nose job to $3,500 for extensive breast work. "We're cheaper and faster, so there's a real global market here, provided we boost our reputation.

"We'd need to become more adept at Western faces, though," she added after a moment's thought. "We won't get anywhere trying to make foreigners look Chinese."