Beauty is everything解码风靡韩国的整容文化

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  　　A  widely circulated series of photos of aspiring beauty queens reveals once again  just how obsessed Korean women are with plastic surgery.

   

  　　近日，一组韩国小姐候选人的照片广为流传，再次向人们揭示出韩国女性是多么痴迷整容。

   

  　　Pictures  of the 20 Miss Korea 2013 finalists were posted on Reddit, a user-generated news  and entertainment website, fuelling speculation that many of them had gone under  the knife because they looked eerily the same.

   

  　　在用户原创新闻娱乐网站Reddit上，网友们上传了2013韩国小姐总决赛20名佳丽的照片，因为她们的样貌看上去惊人地相似，不由得让人猜想其中大部分人的脸上都“动了刀”。

   

  　　All  of the contestants have dark, long hair; fair, pale skin; big eyes and a  perfect, bright white smile. Their faces are oval with sharp, pointed chins that  seem to have undergone a certain procedure called “V-line  surgery”.

   

  　　所有候选佳丽都拥有一头乌黑的长发、白皙的肤色、明亮的大眼睛以及完美笑容。她们都长着“鹅蛋脸”，尖下巴。看上去似乎是接受了一种名为“V脸整形”的整容手术。

   

  　　Reddit  user HotBrownie, who claims to come from Seoul, was quoted by UK newspaper the  Daily Mail as saying: “Those  women in fact do look unnervingly similar. This is called the Korean plastic  face look. In certain areas of Seoul, you would think all the women are sisters  because they look so similar.”

   

  　　英国《每日邮报》援引自称来自首尔的Reddit网站用户“HotBrownie”的话说：“这些女人看上去的确很像。这被称作韩国的‘整容脸’。在首尔的某些地方，你会错把很多女人当成姐妹，因为她们的脸看起来太像了。”

   

  　　The  photos may be the result of Photoshop, but they still show that the contemporary  concept of female beauty in South Korea is highly monotonous and conforms to a  single ideal.

   

  　　尽管这些照片可能都经过了PS处理，但仍显示出当下韩国女性奉行同一种美的标准，千篇一律。

   

  　　The  Atlantic magazine carried a photo of Miss Korea in 1960. Her face is round and  full, her nose is flat and her eyes are small. Back then, women were expected to  enhance their natural beauty instead of changing their physical features. But  now, beauty contest teams often have a consulting plastic surgeon on  hand.

   

  　　《大西洋月刊》曾刊登了一张1960年韩国小姐的照片，照片中的人圆脸盘、扁鼻梁，小眼睛。当时的女性崇尚自然美，而不是去选择“变脸”。而现在，参加选美比赛的各支团队都会配有整形顾问。

   

  　　South  Koreans have more plastic surgery than people in any other nation, according to  figures released by the International Society of Aesthetic Plastic  Surgeons.

   

  　　一项由国际美容整形学会发布的数据显示，整容手术在韩国比在其他任何国家都要普遍。

   

  　　One  in every 77 South Koreans has turned to the knife or needle. Last year, 20  percent of women aged 19 to 49 in Seoul admitted to having had some form of  cosmetic surgery.

   

  　　韩国每77人中便有一人接受整容手术。去年，韩国首尔有20%的19至49岁女性承认自己曾“动过刀”。

   

  　　Many  women have had their eyes and noses done — making their eyes look bigger with double  eyelids and their noses smaller and higher. The result is a more Western  look.

   

  　　很多韩国女性选择对自己的眼睛和鼻子“动刀”——双眼皮手术令眼睛变大，鼻部整形令鼻子变得更加小巧挺拔，使得外形更加“西方化”。

   

  　　This  dissatisfaction with their ethnic features has prompted some to describe South  Koreans’ obsession with plastic surgery as “self-racism”.  But, as an article in The Atlantic points out, it’s  more complicated than that.

   

  　　这种对外貌的不满使得一些人将韩国的整容风潮形容成一种“自我种族歧视”。但刊登在《大西洋月刊》上的一篇文章指出，实际情况要复杂得多。

   

  　　A  powerful consumer culture over the past two decades has led to Korean women  equating beauty with professional and economic success. In South Korea, the  value of beauty is upfront and open. Employers scrutinize the looks of  applicants in addition to their professional  qualifications.

   

  　　一种强劲的韩国消费文化在过去的二十年间，令韩国女性们将美丽与职业与财力上的成功画上等号。在韩国，容貌的价值众所周知。除了应聘者的专业能力，韩国的雇主们还会仔细检视他们的外表。

   

  　　“It’s  not enough just to have a certain skill set,” Sharon Hejiin Lee, a cultural analysis scholar  at New York University, told The Atlantic. “You  have to be beautiful as well. After the Korean economic crisis in 1997,  competition for jobs led to the surgery boom; people trying to get a leg up in  the job market any way they can.”

   

  　　“仅仅拥有某些技能是不够的，”纽约大学文化分析学者Sharon  Hejiin Lee在接受《大西洋月刊》采访时表示，“你必须还要漂亮。在1997年的经济危机之后，工作竞争的加剧导致了整形手术的激增。人们想尽办法，为的就是能够在就业市场中脱颖而出。”