What are South Korean women smiling about?

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Why so serious? The Joker’s perpetual smile may have painted a suitably diabolical picture in the Batman movie franchise, but women in South Korea are choosing to go in for a kind of surgery that lifts the corners of their lips and awards them a permanently smiling face.

According to AONE clinic in South Korea, the surgery offers to provide people so inclined a more ‘western’ face.
A photo was recently posted on a social networking site showing a girl with the smile ‘lipt’, a combination of the words ‘lift’ and ‘lip’. Although the authenticity of the photograph has not been verified, there are takers for this rather distinct type of surgery. Is beauty worth going under the knife for? It’s a decision that calls for some reflection for it makes us confront some fundamental questions about ourselves.
The Huffington Post reports that South Korea is the world leader in per capita plastic surgery, according to the International Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons. Its findings reveal that 20 per cent of South Korean women have resorted to plastic surgery in pursuit of those ‘perfect’ sculpted features.