In a bid to increase their job prospects after college, Chinese students are resorting to a bizarre practice – Eiffel Tower nose jobs. The latest trend in plastic surgery promises to create a nose that is classic, slender and sloping, similar to the sweeping curve of the Eiffel Tower.
Surgeon Wang Xuming, the brains behind the procedure, said: “We are influenced by the beauty of the Eiffel Tower, we are not content to just add something to the nose, we reconstruct it.” The surgery costs about US $10,000 and involves the enlarging of the nose using tissue from the forehead.
Hundreds of posters advertising the procedure are plastered all over Chongqing city, where surgeon Xuming runs his practice. It shows a Western-looking woman with an almost-too-perfect nose, against a silhouette of the Eiffel Tower. Interestingly, many young women in China are eager to achieve a western appearance, as they believe it will give them an edge in the highly competitive job market.
“Some students face a lot of employment pressure after graduation, if their facial features are good, they’ll have more chance of finding a job,” said surgeon Xuming. “We’ve had students getting the Eiffel Tower nose, it’s helped them a lot.”
Apparently, Chinese employers are quite particular about appearances and prefer attractive candidates. Some of them even go as far as posting height and weight requirements in their recruitment ads. Plastic surgeons across the country are reporting an increase in the number of students opting for beauty ‘enhancements’.
2013 was dubbed the ‘toughest ever year’, with a whopping seven million graduates entering the Chinese job market. A shortage of white-collar jobs is creating unemployment for hundreds of thousands of graduates. But the growing wallets of the middle class ensures that Chinese parents will do anything to give their kids an edge over others.
According to a Mr. Li, hospital manager at surgeon Xuming’s clinic, most of their clients are female and the bill is taken care of by the family. “They usually come in with their mothers, and tend to be from well-off backgrounds,” she said.
Li also explained that the nose is loosely connected to the famous French landmark. “The Eiffel is a classic building, full of aesthetic design, we try to combine medicine and art. We hope the noses will turn out as classics, taking on the feeling of the Eiffel Tower.”
Well, I must admit that I’m a tad disappointed. When I first heard about the Eiffel Tower nose jobs, I was expecting to see pictures of noses that looked exactly like the real thing – ending with a point.
Source: CTV.ca/AFP
