"Mirror, mirror, am I the most perfect woman of all? Should I make my nose just a bit higher? Maybe do the eyelids again? Oh! look at the wrinkles, maybe I should have my face lifted some time ..."
Rosalyn Ku (顧婕) is the kind of woman who likes to look in the mirror every day and examine her face to figure out what procedure she should undergo next. Since the age of 15, she has has had plastic surgery 25 times. Now 37 years old, her friends have given her the nickname the "queen of plastic surgery."
To make her originally single-lidded eyes double-lidded, like Caucasians, she has had nine operations over the last 10 years. "The first time the doctor used the `sewing' method. But the crease was not so obvious. The second time another doctor used the `cutting' method. The third time, however, the doctor made the crease too high on my right eye. It was horrible, so I had to do the surgery many more times," Ku said.
To make her face look like Brooke Shields -- her idol when she was young -- Ku began "fixing" her teeth at the age of 15, getting rid of three "tiger teeth." She also started on her nose by inserting artificial cartilage to pad out her nose column. The second time the artificial cartilage was replaced by a small piece of cartilage from her ear. In total she has had surgery four times on her nose and five times on the teeth.
In Ku's own words, her journey of discovery into the world of plastic surgery was "like Dr. Sun Yat-sen's revolution." in that she experienced 10 failures. "I'm not afraid of making public all these experiences. I pursue beauty and I have made full use of the technologies in the beauty industry. I believe that times have changed and there's nothing that can't be talked about," Ku said.
The ROC Plastic Surgery Association said there were 1 million procedures done last year, double the amount five years ago. "Among my patients, more and more of them are being open about having plastic surgery. They admit to their friends and relatives, `Yes, I've done it, and more than once,'" said Dr. James Chang (張炯銘), a surgeon from the Artist Plastic Surgery Clinic (藝術家整形外科診所).
Walking into Chang's clinic on Taipei's busy Zhongxiao East Road, the elegantly appointed reception room is filled with patients and surgery nurses with green uniforms. "Look at this picture of Nicole Kidman. Her cheekbone is up here, but her cheeks are still skinny," said a beauty consultant trying to persuade a client to undergo liposuction on her cheeks and create more definition on her face.
"On busy days I have five to six operations a day," said Dr. James Chang. "We even have midnight surgery appointments." In total, the clinic does 3,000 surgery procedures a year.
Following Chang's advice, Ku underwent what Chang calls "lipo-sculpture" to make her face slimmer. That is, the surgeon sucks out fat from the face and uses his hands to mould the adipose tissue remaining. The lipo-sculpture procedure has finally given the round-faced Ku a defined face and sharper chin. "Now my body and face are all perfect. I have to thank Dr. Chang for all this," she said.
Ku may may have been a trail blazer with plastic surgery and has even published a book about her experiences, the Queen of Plastic Surgery, but a new generation of Taiwanese are now getting in on the act. At Artist Plastic Surgery Clinic, the youngest patient was 16 years old, asking for advice to re-shape her face.
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