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.
I am alienman. Writing a small blurb about myself is the hardest thing to do. "Blurb" is a funny word.
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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!
It may seem wierd or random for me to be posting here, but I enjoyed this article and I am African American. I found it because I searched the word “monolids” on google. I have monolids simply because I was blessed with what God wanted to give me. I also have hazel eyes, blonde/light brown hair. I am a plus sized woman and I love my looks. In regards to my eyes, throughout my life strangers and loved ones have constantly told me to “OPEN YOUR EYES!!!!!” angrily because they shut when I smile. It is ridiculous that others take offense to how you naturally look. In the African American community it is seen by many as a rite of passage at around age 10 to have your hair chemically straightened. It is considered leaving girlhood and becoming a young lady.When I decided in college to stop paying hundreds of dollars a year to break down my hair folicles and make them look more “white”, many Black people were horrified. They kept saying I would be ugly with short (I would have to cut the chemically altered part out of my hair and grow it fresh) and kinky/nappy hair. They acted like I was attractive because of my straight long hair. I cut it off and let my natural hair texture show. Suddenly people started calling me “exotic” and trying to touch me. It is so ridiculous! I am just a person, not an exotic animal! In my opinion, you are not beautiful BECAUSE of your eyes or hair or skin color. You are beautiful because you are unique and keep your skin/body/hair healthy and have a beautiful attitude.
My first post, and I choose an ancient entry. Just wanted to chime in and offer kudos on this and your other clever, helpful, and entertaining posts. I’ve just discovered you while trolling the interwebs for info on false eyelashes.
I’m wondering if anyone has considered this question: Are this doctor’s actions more offensive because he’s not Asian? Because I don’t think so. Plain and simple, my beef with this guy is that he performed cosmetic surgery on someone who didn’t seek it out herself.
I’m Korean, and when I was 17, my parents succeeded in coercing me into having the blepharoplasty. My sister, who is two years my senior, had it done (willingly) in the summer before leaving for college, and mom and dad assumed I’d do the same. I had a similar showdown with my parents — a screaming, crying mess. At the end, my mom said, “But don’t you want to be pretty?” I still don’t know if I was more heartbroken or puzzled. I wondered, “Does that mean I’m ugly?” And then, “Wait, you two gave me these eyes, and they were good enough for you!”
Anyway, resistance was futile. On the day of the surgery, I obediently drove to the doctor’s office with my mother. The needles were the worst part, and the blood a close second. After the procedure, my mom drove me home, giant cotton pads taped over my eyes. They reminded me of McDonalds hamburger buns. Mom said not to worry, and that I’d thank her when I saw how pretty I was going to be. I cried the whole way home, behind my gauze blindfold. To add insult to injury, the salty tears stung like hell. **Whoo! Just writing this now still gets me a little choked up!**
That night, I removed the bandages, expecting something Frankensteinian. And that’s what I saw. The stitches were neat, their tiny black knots poking me in the inner corners of my eyes. Thankfully, it was summer, so I hid out in my house most of the time. When my stitches came out, I was relieved, because I started feeling like myself again, and not a circus freak. To my doctor’s credit, his work was good. The procedure didn’t radically change my appearance, but it did change the angle of my lashline and gave me a subtle crease. About a week after, I was still a bit red and tender, but my dad said, “Hey, you don’t look so angry and mean anymore.” What can you do? He’s the only dad I’ve got.
I think like many parents (and dare I venture it, Asian parents), mine meant well, but had no concept of me as an independent adult with her own wishes and perception of self. I didn’t think I needed to change, and I didn’t want to. But the desire to hold my position was not as strong as my desire to please my parents. In the end, that’s why I caved. So, I managed to make them happy. But that is a slippery slope. Because making choices to please others (especially your parents) is a treadmill that will consume your life. In subsequent years, my parents dangled their approval with the following expectations: to law school, marry a nice Korean boy, have children (daughters first, then sons), live close to home. I haven’t done any of them. Not out of defiance or disrespect; my life just didn’t unfold that way. After the eye surgery thing, I promised myself that while my parents (bless their hearts) were the influential force of my youth, I would be my own force of influence in my adulthood. How can you know you’re truly happy if you’re not?
Sorry to digress. My point: of all the people in your world, your parents are supposed to love you unconditionally, monolid, double-lid, whatever. In a perfect world, all children are beautiful in the eyes of parents. But not all parents are perfectly equipped to love their children in such a pure way, or express it gracefully. I think this guy’s actions are certainly wrong. He thought he was doing something good for her, just like mine thought they were. I don’t heap a harsher judgment on this guy than I do on my parents, though, because they were both doing the same thing.
Maybe some day, this guy will look back at what he did and regret it. Or his daughter, like me, may accept what happened and choose to move forward in life. I’m 35 now, and I have enough self-confidence to just accept myself and my modified eyes. I find myself more attractive when I choose positivity instead of bitterness, even if my parents are still batshit crazy sometimes.
PS: I still don’t know how to use eyeshadow. Crap.
TotallyAFan:
It couldn’t have been easy for you to share your past and your thoughts. Thank you so much for taking the time. I’m happy to hear that you’ve grown more content with yourself and I do hope to hear more from you in the near future!
Thanks, alienman. I felt compelled to post because the topic of blepharoplasty is seems damn controversial, and yet, you rarely hear the perspective of people who have actually been through it. I work on a college campus, and each year during Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, someone thinks it’s cute to host a program about the dangers of “racialized cosmetic surgery,” and then enjoy their little echo chamber about how women who undergo it secretly hate themselves, and their Asianness.
The epic irony of sessions like this is that they’re hosted by people who fancy themselves activists dedicated to honestly conveying all points of view, but deep down, you know they’re judging people just as much as the people they’re so quick to accuse of prejudice. It’s silly and utterly counterproductive.
Anyhoo, thanks for the reply — and keep the goodness coming.
TAF
OMG ur picture on the right is sooooooooo cute!!!!!!! i have doublelids but ther realy small. . .they look like urs but wen u look close ther double lids. . .since ur eyes r so cute im proud 2 call myself a monolid. . .^^ ~~
Awww, jess, you are so sweet! I’m very happy that I’ve inspired you to appreciate your own monolids more. I do hope you feel good about yourself without having to wait for someone else to tell you if you are. Thank you for motivating me to keep writing!
So I know I’m a little late to the party, and bringing this up again after a while could be a little random, but I just found this a really interesting post. I personally don’t feel that it’s about monolids or having a crease – the only reason I don’t much like my eyes is simply because they’re small. Annoyingly so. I actually really love my eye shape – it’s certainly different because, like yours, my tear duct is kind of hidden behind that web of skin – but I feel that I know what I’m talking about in terms of size because my younger brother has inherited one eye from my mother and one from my father – that is to say, one is monolidded and the other is not. It looks odd, particularly because the eye that actually has a crease is pretty damn big by anyone’s standards. (By the way, I adore your eyes. They’re gorgeous.)
You’re definitely right about saying that this doctor was wrong for forcing surgery on a girl who never even expressed an interest in having it and who might not even have considered it – it does seem to suggest a certain close-mindedness on the part of the doctor. And I’m not sure whose choice of wording it was to say that it was a “hardship” to have Asian eyes – I mean, seriously?? It’s no more a hardship than being short, or having small breasts, or just having a characteristic which certain cultures just cannot accept as beautiful! Stupid, stupid, stupid.
I have considered surgery but haven’t really made my mind up about whether or not I’d ever actually go through with it – I mean, first of all, it sounds pretty gruesome. And I don’t know if I’m willing to put myself through that. But also, putting eyeliner on my eyes completely changes my eye shape, so that sort of eliminates any excuses I have about being stuck with small eyes. Having said that, it’s kind of a pain that EVERY single time I go out, I get really stressy if I don’t have anything on my eyes. Surely it would just be better to take the eye shape my mother has already (which, by the way, is gorgeous) and which, if genetics had been kinder to me/my mother had picked someone else to marry (no, I’m not just being shallow. My dad and I literally don’t talk. The last time we did, I got shoved into a telephone box and actually trapped there for a good 15 minutes while he waited for the police to arrive – and have them tell me that I had done NOTHING wrong.) I would have anyway? Ugh, I’m just so indecisive. I do like getting other people’s opinions though, so do reply if you can be bothered
Also late in commenting. I just stumbled across your blog a few weeks ago. What’s going on here reminds me of some of the same things black/african american people go through. If they have naturally straight or long hair everyone automatically thinks it’s fake. Stuff like this is so annoying! Anyway, great blog!
I’m another one who’s late to the (horrific) party. I’d heard a bit about how common this surgery was but reading the full link you posted to… I’d never really thought about it. My friends have all different shapes of eyes and I think they are all beautiful. I’d never gotten up in anyone’s face to poke and pry around to see up close and personal to see how eyelids fold/crease/areshaped. The only problem I’ve ever had is not being able to do some peoples makeup for them in girlie fests because I wasn’t sure how to do some peoples makeup without screwing it all up. That pretty much topped out my problems with different physical features… Not having a clue during girlie fests how to do some of my friends hair or makeup and vice versa. Then I read this and it actually left me crying. I don’t have anything substantial to add. Just that. It made me cry to read about someone doing this to a tiny child and being oblivious to how incredibly wrong and damaging they were being to a child they were suppose to love and protect. Something inside me seethes with rage as well… My boyfriend’s children are japanese/all sorts of white.. I hadn’t heard the term monolid til reading your site.. I guess two of his boys have monolids. I don’t know. They are happy and smile and their eyes close up and the only thing I’ve ever thought is that they are cute-tacular and adorable and I want to see them like that pretty much all the time because it means they’re smiling and happy. For toddlers they can give one heck of a wry and snarky smile, it’s pretty amazing. When the eldest and youngest have a full face smile their eyes scrunch up and I KNOW they’re as happy as can possibly be. I would feel on the verge of dismembering anyone who ever said there was anything wrong with how they looked or that anything should be done to ‘fix’ them.
Suddenly I feel like this is something I should be more aware of because they are gorgeous and beautiful and the only thing I would ever want to ‘shape’ them in is being happy and healthy and confident. My blood boils and I need to stop and count to ten repeatedly thinking about anyone ever telling them anything else. I know compassion and education and awareness will go much farther than anger and hostility but I feel like stomping on anyone who comes near them with such misguided vile thoughts. I also feel like I need some education of my own because I’d never thought about anything like that in my own naive and apparently insulated existence and social sphere. Your blog’s funny as hell and I was reading far back into it for the chuckles and nail polish but I think I’ve come away with something very important.. Awareness of things I didn’t even know I was ignorant about. Thanks for your hilarious but insightful, thoughtful, and uhg the pun… eye opening writing.
querencia: Thank you for taking the time to reply. I haven’t blogged in a while but it’s reactions like yours that make me want to pick up the figurative pen once more.