Why suddenly Chinese girl is so obsessed with their beauty?

[tangseng]

These days a lot's of news from China is about how people care so much about their beauty. They spend a fortune having a plastic surgery and beauty care and also they think it's another way to get economic power. But in any reason it looks very shallow. I heard there would soon be a plastic surgery beauty contest in China. It make me feel whole Asian culture is based on matierialism and skin. Is it because of western influence, or is it because of a fault in our own culture?

[sunyata]

it's not the fault of any culture...it's the fault of human nature - greed (for fame, wealth, beauty and any other slef-benefit) and plain stupidity

[wushijiao]

Like sunyata, I'd say it's a question of human nature. Besides, in Shanghai at least, most girls seem to follow fashions set by Chinese and other Asian stars, not Western ones so much.

Also, I'd add that many girls who are graduating into a brutally competetive job market think that beauty might give them the edge that seperates them from the masses. Sadly, I think there is some truth to that.

One interesting thing happened to me. As a teacher here, I try to give my students contact with as much real English language material as possible. So, my parents sent me a lot of old magazines- issues of Time, the Economist, Newsweek, Spin, Rolling Stone, Car and Driver, Ski, National Geographic, Outdoor, Cosmo and a few others. The students would almost fight and push to borrow the Cosmo, with very mild interest in any of the others. I had to create a waiting list for people to borrow the Cosmo. I suppose I had been brain washed in the West to thinking that they would crave good objective Western journalism. Yet no one wanted to read the political magazines, although I think they were probably way to difficult for even the advanced students even if they cared.

[holyman]

i think chinese girls do take concern about their looks anytime. just that maybe now we see more trendy magazines and fashion programmes on tv, we 'suddenly realised that'. some yrs back i went to chengdu for a trip and althou their streets and city is still a little old-fashioned, i was surprised to see females dressing up wonderfully. younger ladies of cos they dress to kill. but even ladies in their 40's wear beautiful blouses and had proper(not overly done) makeups on their faces. its really 徐娘半老风韵犹存. changed the impression of what northern chinese girls had gave me.

[tangseng]

I think people in every country care, of course, about their appearance. It is human nature as you said. but it seems more extreme in China, I think no other country was trying to hold a plastic surgery beauty contest. Do you think it is because Chinese businessmen are trying to make money from every industry? Or is it that chinese people purely absolutely do not care about plastic surgery. In other countries people are a little ashamed to have plastic surgery, if they do it they want to hide it. It seems Chinese are proud of it.