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“I wanted to be a perfect beauty”– the story of surgery ‘addict’ Han Mi Ok

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‘I couldn’t accept people more beautiful than me. I wanted to be a perfect beauty.’

Last week I posted about the rise in Korean girls opting for plastic surgery, some would say to conform to an assumed ideal. This week I read the tragic story of Korean singer, schizophrenia sufferer and surgery “addict” Han Mi Ok, who self-injected cooking oil, silicon and paraffin to make her face perfectly smooth.

Coincidentally, this was in the late nineties; when the then-current Hipster art elite told us we were all going to be Post-Human cyborgs after the Millennium. Artist Stelarc even had an extra ear grafted on to his arm. But it was humanity, not Post-Humanity that saved Han Mi Ok from a life of misery, poverty and isolation.

Featured in a 2004 Seoul Broadcasting System report, viewers raised around £16k for remedial operations at the Kangbuk Samsung Hospital, and she received the psychiatric help she needed. Today she says – ‘I was insane when I injected myself. I regret it now. Now I’m going back to normal life.’

This is part of a short series of posts.Last week: Twenty women with “the same face” Next week: On the girls who become dolls

Sources : AsiaOne, The New Paper, SBS (Seoul Broadcasting System)

Tagged: Art and Artists | Controversial Issues



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