West is best for beauty
After more than a decade of economic liberalisation in
Vietnam, women are bearing the brunt of change.
Traditional notions of physical beauty are coming under
strain as a huge influx of advertising and other western
factors influence the country.
The authorities have frequently voiced concern
over the social impact this trend is having, especially on
younger people.
It might not be Paris or Milan, but on the catwalks of
downtown Saigon, they take
their fashion and their looks
as seriously and it is the
beauty icons of the Western
world that set the standards.
Backstage at a fashion show,
22-year-old Tranh wishes she had the
blonde locks and all-American
features of Marilyn Monroe while her
friend, Lan-Anh, envies Cindy
Crawford, not so much for her style,
as for her looks.
A glance at the advertising
billboards tells Vietnamese
women in no uncertain terms
that when it comes to
beauty, West is best. The
shops overflow with imported
cosmetics of every
description - not least an
extensive range of products
meant to turn a brown skin
white.
Unlike many of their western
counterparts, Vietnamese
women go to great lengths to
avoid getting a tan. Hats and long gloves protect against
the bronzed skin which in colour-conscious Vietnam is
the mark of a lowly manual labourer
Of course there are those Vietnamese women for whom
all the make-up and all the cosmetics will never be quite
enough in terms of achieving that western look. Those
are the sort of women who turn to surgery.
The new generation of plastic surgeons in Vietnam no
longer heals the scars of the war. Instead, they make a
comfortable living trimming noses, creating double
eyelids and expanding the busts of female patients
unhappy with the way nature left them.
In his surgery, Dr Nguyen
Xuan Cuong explains to the
latest customer for his craft
that a more shapely
Western-style nose will
embellish her Vietnamese
looks.
"Higher is better. I put this
implant inside her nose under
the skin, and on top of the
bone, the nasal bone, to
make her higher, like that."
In the waiting room downstairs, more hopeful clients
ponder the enhancements that the scalpel can achieve.
For Vietnamese women, it seems the pursuit of the
Western ideal of beauty, however questionable, has
never been more apparent.
BBC News Service - January 11, 1999.
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