Some poor little girl ended up with one hell of an adoptive father. Apparently, he didn’t get a pretty enough girl from the Asian baby market, so he wielded his own professional cosmetic surgery skills to upgrade his current model.
o look! a defect!
He described her as a beautiful, happy child in whom he took much delight. Her life, he told the audience, had been improved dramatically by the miracle of modern medicine. When she joined her new Caucasian family, her eyes, like those of many people of Asian descent, lacked a fold in the upper eyelid, and that lack was problematic—in his view—because it made her eyes small and sleepy and caused them to shut completely when she smiled. A plastic surgeon himself, he knew she did not need to endure this hardship, so he arranged for her to have surgery to reshape her eyes. The procedure, he explained, was minimally invasive and maximally effective. His beautiful daughter now has big round eyes that stay open and shine even when she smiles.
For those of you who can’t or don’t want to register, this blog provides some key excerpts.
This makes me sick to my stomach.
One of the main reasons I started this blog was because there was the prevalent assumption that the only way to apply makeup on a monolid was to wear thick eyeliner or get eyelid surgery. As a monolid, I’ve had no problems enjoying life and love. I don’t go blind and run into a fucking lamppost just because I crack a smile.
I wouldn’t care if it were a matter of a fully grown woman having made the decision to undergo the surgery herself. If you have done it or you’re planning on doing it, then by all means, have at it and I wish you the best of whatever choice you make for yourself.
However, you know how I feel about parents and relatives pressuring young women to undergo the knife, convincing them that they can’t marry a rich man if they aren’t pretty. They’re telling their own daughters that they’re not pretty enough by their own standards and that they’re not good enough without eyelid surgery. I can still vividly remember the fateful night when I was on the verge of leaving my parents. One of the things for which I confronted her was her stubborn efforts to convince me that I NEEDED eyelid surgery to succeed in life.
“Am I so hideous and worthless to you?” I asked her. “Am I so ugly to you? Is this how a parent should ever see her own child?”
I’m not ashamed to show you this is how my naked eyes look. Should I be?
Never again has my mother ever told me to change my looks. If anything, she now tells me that I don’t need to change a thing. She used to slap my wrist when she thought I was eating too much but now she tells me she’d rather see me healthy and happy than see me lose weight. While I have a hard time trusting that her perspective of my looks could have done such a complete 180, I appreciate her change of manners.
At the least, most Asian parents will wait until their daughters are in high school or in college to bring up blepharoplasty (didn’t know the word until now; thanks, Liz!). The article says it’s common to practice it upon children and even newborns, which I found surprising.
What this man essentially did was to buy himself an exotic little girl, maybe to accessorize his lifestyle and status, and then give her a tune-up. On top of that, he made it sound like her absence of a double-eyelid was a medical condition, as if she was born with a crippling disability and he saved her from a lifetime of hardships. It makes me sick to my stomach to think of how many more plastic surgeries this girl might think she would need in the future because a nip and a tuck here and there could solve so many of her insecurities.
***
Congratulations! You are now a proud owner parent of a model 2010 Asian girl!
All the celebrities are doing it, so why shouldn’t you follow this chic trend while it’s still hot? Asian babies are all the rage nowadays and you can now be a member of the fashionable elite with your upgradeable model.
Upgradeable? Why, yes! For just another several thousand dollars, you can give your baby girl a tune-up and update her looks to suit the aesthetic standards today’s modern society!
Let’s face it. All the pretty dresses in the world will not make those beady little slits look any less sleepier.
And it looks like it’s not even illegal, so what’s stopping you?
Thus, unless it could be characterized as an abuse case—which would be difficult given the utter lack of supporting precedent—current law would treat the case of the father who chose to reshape his daughter’s eyes no differently from those of a mother who opts to pin back her child’s ears, the couple that chooses to circumcise a newborn son, or the father who agrees to hormone treatment to add height to his child. It is a matter of parental choice, limited only by finances and the availability of a willing provider. The question the case raises, then, is whether the existing paradigm is adequate.
Couldn’t get a prettier girl for a daughter? Cut up her eyes! All the Asian parents are doing it anyway! Tell her she was sick and you’re making her all better now! She’s a good little Asian girl so she’ll just be the sweet, submissive girl you expect her to be!
***
Bella is a monolid, too! Let’s get her, guys! Under the knife you go!
On a slight tangent, I also want to address those who say eyelid surgery is wrong “because Asian eyes are so beautiful.”
I think we need to make it clear to those who are not Asians that having a fold in the eyelid is not a non-Asian thing. A lot of Asians are naturally born with creased eyelids and it’s debatable whether people get the surgery to look “more white”. I’ve heard some Asian girls were berated by random strangers for getting eyelid surgery when, in fact, they were born with distinct creases in their eyelids. Please do NOT assume that, just because we’re Asian, we’re all born without creased eyelids. It’s not a genetic fluke to have a crease. This is why I get irritated when people refer to monolids as “Asian eyes”.
I don’t give a shit about whether my eyes are pretty or not “because they’re Asian”. I’m tired of people telling me that I’m beautiful “because” I have Asian eyes or that I’m not beautiful “because” I have monolids. In the first case, it’s as if my beauty is identified primarily because of the social construction of race that exoticizes (totally made up a word) who I am without actually SEEING who I am. In the latter case, I feel like my face is broken down into a million pieces and analyzed as if it were something for others to judge; I feel that I am judged for the pieces that I comprise but not who I am as a whole.
As I’ve said before, I don’t have to be proud of my eyes but I don’t have to be ashamed of them either. Whether or not I decide to have eyelid surgery should be up to me to decide, not society, not my parents, not anyone else.
Credits to Resist Racism for bringing me awareness to this issue.
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Saw this when you posted it on twitter. Can't believe that it wasn't a massive troll and was actually real.
He changed her because she was not physically attractive to him and he believed this would cause her future hardship. So when she grows up, if she doesn't have big enough breasts, he'll just give her implants too.
You said it best. I also love how you went into the whole “Asian eyes” thing… You already know how much flack I got for posting vid tutorials on makeup with tape, and how much people try to convince us that it's all about looking “white” or something silly like that. I think the ability to choose is beautiful and the fact that this girl lost that ability is so frustrating and stupid.
I think it would feel more “right” to me if she had HAD asian parents who told her their preference of eyelids (even with all of the pressure and frustration) than adoptee parents who took her right to choose.
Oh, and your “naked eye” look is so chic.
You look good with no makeup!
That is so sad, why in the world would someone wanna cut up a little girl just because he don't like how she looks. No one is perfect and I doubt he is too.
Sounds like it could easily be from the Onion, doesn't it?
Hehehe. I'm wearing everything BUT eye makeup.
I asked my almost 13-year-old (monolid) daughter what she thought of this. [Background: I'm a white American, married to a Japanese man, living in Tokyo, and raising three kids who look more like my husband than like me.] She said, “The doctor thought he was doing the right thing because it's his job to fix problems with people's bodies. But it wasn't the right thing for the little girl because it wasn't a problem, it was part of her race, and it was something she should have been proud of.”
(http://thehomesickhome.blogspot.com/)
At first when I read the beginning of your post I thought it wasn't real, but then I realized it was true I was absolutely disgusted by this monster! How can anyone think it's ok to alter a little girl's appearance simply because they don't think she's attractive enough? I truly believe that man shouldn't have children.
Unfortunately we live in a world that prizes beauty and will go to crazy lengths to have it. But I do understand how some people can cave into the pressure or be tricked into thinking that they aren’t beautiful or they need to look like this to be liked. I was once there too, I hated how when I smiled in pictures my eyes looked so slanty compared to my friends or how I almost got a nose job because I thought it was too flat. I bought into the fact that having certain features made you beautiful, but now I realize that outer beauty subjective and it’s all bullshit. If we keep focusing on what people think is beautiful and what they think is ugly no one will ever be satisfied with their appearance. Personally, I think people are beautiful in their individual ways, sure Gisele is gorgeous but so is my best friend, comparing the two won’t do anything though because their totally different. Monolids and double lids are different, but no less attractive in my opinion. I guess we have to accept the fact that there will be people who bring down other’s by deeming them ugly and what not. Anyway were all gonna end up the same in the end when were old and shriveled up…
So sorry for this MASSIVE post! Didn’t realize how long it was!
You know how much I appreciate long comments
ugh, that is sickening and sad. what's wrong with people nowadays? Did he not even think to ask her how she felt about it?? I thought about eyelid surgery before but I've learned to accept what I have. At times I get irritated since I have these half-assed wannabe eyelids but at the end of the day, I'm glad I have even that little amount of crease space
You look great without makeup! And you have big round pretty eyes 
“This is why I get irritated when people refer to monolids as “Asian eyes”.
It seriously bugs me as well.
Anyway…
Its this huge joke here.
Among us girls, when we graduated highschool, we asked each other what we were getting as a gift from our parents.
Car, comp, bag, korea to get our eyes done.
Some of us were kidding, while many of my friends actually did. It was as if it were a right of passage to getting older!
Anyway I mention that cause one of my other unni friends, she always had one monolid, and one double growing up. When she was in first year, she suddenly had both doubles! Parents kept asking her when she got it done, and how much it costed her, when in fact it just 'grew' in to fit the other natural double.
She was scared for some time cause no one really believed her, though I think the lack of swelling should have been a giveaway.
“Whether or not I decide to have eyelid surgery should be up to me to decide, not society, not my parents, not anyone else.”
Ditto.
Ugh. I hate how people automatically assume you had some kind of work done when there is such a thing as nature taking its course. Also, I'm totally with you about the rite of passage thing. My mom finally gave up on buying me cosmetic surgery of any kind but she still thinks I'm crazy b/c I don't want a car as my graduation gift. I want my new car to be one I bought with my money from my first job after graduation. So, I'm probably going to be driving my ancient Civic another 10 years LOL.
Yea, I have to admit, I thought about it for a while, too. It's not the act of getting surgery that bothers me. It's other people thinking they have a say in what I should do when it comes to altering my body! I mean, really, how dare they? I don't have to look pretty for everyone as long the ones for whom I truly care find me beautiful enough.
Oh, and I'm wearing a shit-ton of face makeup in that picture. I'm just not wearing eye makeup ;P If there's one thing I can't stand about my face, it's the acne!!!
Hey, there! Thanks for visiting
It sounds like your daughter's at the age where she's going to be having many insecurities about her beauty. I recall feeling like the ugliest duckling in the world at her age. I'm glad that you talk to her about these things. Many daughters are not so lucky.
There actually is no such thing as race. Race is a social construction, always defined by the dominant group, made into reality only by our practices of racial discrimination. There is no biological bases for race and we shouldn't confuse it with ethnicity or with shared family lineage.
this is absurd. Seriously she's not old enough to have a say so in that sense it's wrong! But if later on in life she felt like having the surgery would improve her life, at least that would be HER decision.
LOL Bella is one of the prettiest monolids ever!! And so are you!!
saw the link when you tweeted it before and I still can't believe it – I'd never do something like that to my child unless they really had problems seeing..and I'd never consider surgery myself unless I needed it. Kind of like my dad, who plans to get eyelid surgery in a year or two because he's got droopy lids and now they're limiting his vision (though he laughs when we talk about it because he finds it funny that he's getting an eyelift before my mom can get one).
bravo, my dear! i’m a fellow monolid and i am very impressed with your courage in speaking up. not much are able to do so. even in the beauty blogging world, i hate to see tons of girls lamenting themselves not having those ideal eyes the other blogger has. it’s total bull to me!