介绍:
Xiaohua: A 15-year-old girl who has undergone extensive plastic surgery has become an instant internet celebrity. Her pointed chin and snow-white skin has made her a “snake spirit” which is a reference to one popular folk legend in China. 郑州一位自称15岁的女孩把自己整容过程的照片发布在微博上，一时间这位整成“蛇精脸”的女孩成了网络红人。Before we going for discussion, I’d like to ask John a specific question. Do you think she looks prettier after than before the surgery?
John: Eh, it’s really difficult to tell. I mean judging by the picture she looks more natural before. I don’t know. It’s just weird all around I would say. You have to remember that she’s 15 years old according to herself, so it’s very uncomfortable for me as an almost 31-year-old man to be commenting on a 15-year-old’s appearance, especially given the fact that many more recent pictures her cleavage is very prominent and even some pictures where she’s almost wearing nothing. So I think I have to say no comment unfortunately. Because it’s just really weird and uncomfortable situation I think, for me at least.
Heyang: Yeah, I think “weird” is a good adj. to describe this personality. This person call Li Enxi (李蒽熙) on Weibo. She has gotton quite a lot of supporters actually, although a lot of people are basically bashing her for going for these excessive plastic surgery but there’s still other people who say that “Oh, this is a pretty face but gone a bit too far.” and I think our view on what are seeing is beautiful has really changed quite a bit and as our society has seemingly gone more diversified and open and allowing people to be different, in some way are eyes appreciating beauty has unified and not in a good way because this face as a snake spirit so to speak is considered as standardize beauty.
John: But here’s the thing, you know, we still look for a symmetry, right? I mean when we look towards beauty, there is a common thread throughout all cultures it’s the more symmetrical a face usually, so the more even from the left to right, from back to front. The more similar that is the more beautiful closer to whatever ideal might be. But the thing is you can’t be too symmetrical. You can’t be too perfect. Because being too perfect is absolutely not natural and perhaps it’s what we are looking at here you see her like “oh, she’s pretty”, but it’s almost too perfect, that’s one of the problems that I think the plastic surgery and trying to reach the ideal. In fact, actually, you don’t want to reach the ideal completely, you want to come very very close, but you want to go like 95%, not 100%.
Heyang: Yeah, it’s a very thin line and you look at her face, we just take picture value of it, I think every part is sort of beyond perfect according to the standard kind of understanding what’s seeing as beautiful, but when you put it together, she almost looks like a monster I’m sorry to say this, (John: especially when she wears weird color contacts) and it just goes too far. And I think that if a person sees this as most beautiful of herself then something is not really right although you know it’s up to her to decide.
John: Yeah, it’s hard to say, I mean there is body dismorphia, this idea that there’s something fundamentally wrong with my body and it’s happened a lot with transgender and transexual. For whatever reason they feel like they’re in a wrong body or there’s something fundamentally wrong with their body and that’s where plastic surgery can actually do some good. So that’s maybe the case with her, I don’t know. But I think it’s definitely a teaching moment if you have kids being like “Hey, look, maybe you think plastic surgery is good, but here’s an example of where can go wrong.”
Heyang: And also it’s reported that she did this to win back an ex-boyfriend, we don’t know whether this is true or not but if you’re having a plastic surgery for someone else’s benefit, then it’s certainly not the way to go.
John: Also, really quickly before we go I do want to make a point, the public attention trajectory is very, very similar to what we saw with Gan Lulu, right? So I do have to wonder if she is not setting herself up for being one of those stupid public celebrities like Kim Kardashian and Gan Lulu. The only reason that people pay attention to them is because they do stupid things.
Xiaohua: It could be. Some people have such guesses. And Wei Qingbo says such kind of girls maybe attractive to Zhainan, because it’s satisfied their fantasy. And Koey says with all the posting sexy photos with her boyfriend and boasting about having half a million yuan pocket money a month, this is Hui San Guan (毁三观).
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