Buying Beauty
Douban
Cosmetic Surgery in China
Hua Wen
overview
Cosmetic surgery in China has grown rapidly in recent years of dramatic social transition. Facing fierce competition in all spheres of daily life, more and more women consider cosmetic surgery as an investment to gain "beauty capital" to increase opportunities for social and career success.
Building on rich ethnographic data, this book presents the perspectives of women who have undergone cosmetic surgery, illuminating the aspirations behind their choices. The author explores how turbulent economic, socio-cultural and political changes in China since the 1980s have produced immense anxiety that is experienced by women both mentally and physically. This book will appeal to readers who are interested in gender studies, China studies, anthropology and sociology of the body, and cultural studies.
contents
Introduction 1
I. Cultural Background of Cosmetic Surgery
1. The Cultural History of Plastic Surgery in China 25
2. China’s First “Artificial Beauty” 51
II. “Beauty Capital” in Social Transition
3. “Being Good-Looking is Capital” 75
4. From the “Iron Rice Bowl” to the “Rice Bowl of Youth” 99
III. The Beauty Economy and “Beauty Diplomacy”
5. The Commodification of the Body 125
6. China’s Beauty Economy and Beauty Ideology 147
IV. Globalization and the Changing Image of Beauty
7. From Barbie Doll to the Korean Wave 167
8. Between the Local and the Global 187
Conclusion 205
