WEN, Hua (Chinese University of Hong Kong)
Remaking the Body in a Global Consumer Culture: Body, Consumption and Cosmetic Surgery in Post-Mao Urban China
Two decades ago, within communist ideology, the quest for beauty was regarded as decadent Western bourgeois culture. But within the last decade, more and more young Chinese women have been enthusiastic consumers of cosmetic surgery. In this paper, I intend to explore the phenomenon of increasing cosmetic surgery in urban China today through the lenses of gender, consumerism, and globalization. I shall discuss the shift over just a few decades from unisex gray Mao suits to the Miss Cosmetic Surgery pageant: how has this dramatic change happened in China and what does the phenomenon mean? What does it mean when permanent alteration of the body is not forced but chosen? When they undergo cosmetic surgery, do women succumb to the male gaze and consumer capitalism, or are they taking their lives and choices into their own hands by having their bodies and faces reshaped. How are feelings of imperfection produced and how are desires to purchase a “perfect look” promoted in our consumer society? Why are surgeries like restructuring the eyelids, heightening the nose bridge and enlarging breasts popular among Chinese women? Why are features of Caucasians so desirable in China? I shall argue that the boom of the cosmetic surgery industry in contemporary China relates to the expansion of global consumer culture and the transition of China from a socialist to a post-socialist regime, alongside changes of ideology and social structure.