Asian Eyes

A CBS 2 News Special Assignment

CBS 2 News' Thelma Gutierrez takes a look at this highly debated topic.

Special Assignment: Asian Eyes aired Dec. 02, 1997 at 11:00 p.m.

It is said the eyes are the windows to the soul. But what happens when a surgeon's scalpel alters nature's creation?

CBS 2 News met three women who decided to undergo a delicate, controversial eye surgery, said CBS 2 News' Thelma Gutierrez. Thirty-four year-old Grace Kwak is a school teacher, Suzy Yoon is a 21-year-old college graduate and 16-year-old Amy Kim is a high school student.

The surgery does not improve their vision nor will it take away wrinkles. Rather, it's an attempt to make the eyes look bigger.

Dr. Peter Nguyen is a cosmetic surgeon who performs the procedure, called upper eyelid blepharoplasty. It's one of the most sought-after operations in Asia and Southern California, said Guiterrez.

The trend for this surgery is growing. In fact, Nguyen performs up to four of these surgeries a week in his office in Westminster. And though the surgery has been going on within Asian circles for decades, it's news to many Westerners.

The double-eyelid surgery was developed in Japan after World War II, said Gutierrez. Since then, it has become the most popular cosmetic surgery procedure among Asian women who say the simply want to improve their features.

But critics say the surgery is no improvement at all and instead these women are trying to change their ethnicity.

"I still believe it mutilates," actress Sumi Hara told Gutierrez. "I think it's ethnic genocide."

According Hara, the eyelid surgery is booming because Asians have been influenced by what they see on the silver screen.

"What you see on the television screen and the movie screens are very rarely us," Hara told Guiterrez. "The predominant culture is European-American, and that is the standard of beauty that is set."

However, women who have had the surgery argue otherwise. Jackie Kim has had blepharoplasty surgery and says it's not an attempt to look more Western.

"This has nothing to do with it," Jackie Kim told Gutierrez. "If I wanted to be Western I should dye my hair blonde, make my eyes bigger. Everything is natural except my eyes."

Jackie Kim says she knows many women who use adhesive tape to create that extra fold on their upper eyelids.

"There's a lot of women who want the surgery," she told Gutierrez. "But their parents say 'no' so they have to wait until they get older."

Until her parents decided she was old enough, 16-year-old Amy Kim had been using the "tape trick" every day for the past year, she told Gutierrez.

Grace Kwak says her reasons for the operation were different. Kwak told Gutierrez she wanted it not for vanity, but for acceptance.

"(I wanted the surgery done) because the ends of my eyes go a little bit up," said Kwak. "It gives people the impression I am cold (and) hard to get along with."

The procedure is not just for Asian women, says Nguyen. He says even Westerners with small eyes have surgery to improve their appearance.

"Just because it is done (more) within an ethnic group, they're not attempting to change the way they look," said Nguyen. "It's an attempt to look better, just to look like other Asians -- more attractive Asians."

Before any surgery, Nguyen measures the area for the fold. Then he marks the lines for the incision.

"In the Asian patients there's a lot of excess tissue," said Nguyen. "You have to remove a significant amount of that tissue so that the fold will form crisply."

And this surgery is not just for young women who hope to improve their looks. In fact, every year, one hundred thousand men and women choose blepharoplasty, according to the Parfitt Facial Plastic Surgery Center. Droopy eyelids can make you look older and can also impair vision. Blepharoplasty can give a refreshed appearance, with a younger, firmer eye area. This type of cosmetic surgery only takes a few hours to complete.

Eight days after their surgeries, Gutierrez went to check on Amy Kim, Kwak and Yoon.

All three were extremely happy with the outcome.

Yet the debate rages on: Is this a procedure designed to simply improve an existing look, or one designed to eliminate an ethnic appearance? For these three women, the answer is the former. However, the discussion will no doubt continue.

For more information:

• Get the answers to frequently asked questions about blepharoplasty
• How is blepharoplasty surgery done?