Taiwan is one of my favourite places in the world! I can never have enough of the people, the karaoke, and the food here! It was great to catch up with my Taiwanese friends again too.
The purpose of this trip was to accompany mom (along with Lisa & Cadence) to see some eye doctors. Mom has degenerative macular disease and unluckily she has the type that is inoperable so even the best doctors in Taiwan are not able to cure her. Fortunately there’s good news: the Specialist here says mom’s eye is stable and her other eye has not deteriorated yet. If she takes care of herself and doesn’t stress too much, her eyesight should be good for another 5-10 years.
After a week in Taiwan, we flew to Seoul, where we stayed at an Airbnb in the Hongdae area close to Hongik University. This area was pretty cool because it has lots of trendy restaurants and shops. On the weekends, the streets would be full of aspiring K-pop stars dancing to the latest choreographed pop songs. Very impressive to watch actually!
The common thing among aspiring girl K-pop stars is the standardized make up – snow white skin tone, doll like fake eyelashes and bright red lipsticks – they all pretty much look the same! The pressure to look good in Korea and most of Asia is unreal. Women are expected to fit within a norm which society defines as beautiful. Most clothes that are affordable only comes in ONE size (size 4 in North America)! Otherwise they will have to pay more for clothes in department or brand name stores!
The facial features that society think is beautiful is pretty much standardized too – big eyes with double eyelids, tall nose, full lips and a pointy chin. These desirable features are made possible with plastic surgery which Korea has become very well known for and been popular for the last 15 years. Indeed, Korea became world-renowned in plastic surgery during the rise of the K-POP. The world noticed how beautiful the K-POP stars are when before and after pictures of their transformation were revealed. Today, there are over 500 plastic surgery clinics in Seoul alone! The advancement in cosmetic surgery is amazing: ranging from the latest skin botox to brow transplants, Korea has it all for about half the price of LA.
This has been a very memorable trip. So glad I decided last minute to join mom, my sister and my niece!