Keeping up with the South Koreans: plastic surgery, photo shoots and personality tests all the rage

The cafe was big, broad and elegant in a bare, industrial style, although we were not here for the decor but because it was the place that the best-looking people in Gangnam went to find one another. Sitting down with three young Seoul singles on a couple of oversized sofas, however, it was soon apparent that being good-looking was not quite good enough.

“She’s ENTP. I can’t take any more ENTPs. It’s everything at the last-minute,” the first young man said.

The young woman opposite nodded but the man next to her looked across at me and then at the first man, as if unsure about whether to speak.

“I’m dating an ENTP,” he said.

Not-so-shaggy dog tale may kill off Kristi Noem’s vice presidential hopes

---

‘I could rent an apartment, but why?’ The teenager who lives on Germany’s high-speed trains

---

Quashing of Harvey Weinstein’s rape conviction draws prompt parallels with Donald Trump trial

---

Germany’s alleged coup: An aristocrat, an astrologer and an army officer go on trial for high treason

---

“I’m ISTJ so I kind of feel like someone more spontaneous is good for me.”

They were talking about personality types based on the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) test that became popular after the second World War and was sometimes used by employers to screen job applicants. Over the past two years, the test has become a craze among young Koreans, many of whom include their four-letter personality type in their social media profiles.

When I suggested to my young companions that it was useful in the way zodiac signs were, their faces darkened – or they would have if their flawless skin was not so glass-like in its radiance. So I changed the subject to ask about their skin care routine and if they followed the 10-step K-beauty regimen of double cleansing, exfoliating, toning, essence, treatment, sheet mask, eye cream, moisturiser and sun screen.

Plastic surgery clinics are everywhere in Gangnam, with billboards on the street and at the subway station promising the perfect look. I asked a woman whose family are in the business if it was true that some Korean parents gave their children plastic surgery for their 18th birthday.

“Double eyelid surgery at 16. You’re a bad parent if you make them wait until they are 18,” she said.

South Korea has more cosmetic surgery procedures per capita than anywhere else in the world and a 2020 survey found that 25 per cent of women between 19 and 29 have undergone one, although some estimates suggest the real figure is twice that. The conventional beauty standard includes having a small nose, big eyes and straight eyebrows and although men have less surgery than women, they work hard to look good too.

“Of course they all have to look like K-pop boy band idols with perfect skin, like porcelain dolls,” the industry insider said.

K-pop is a hugely profitable element of the K-wave or Hallyu, which also includes K-drama and K-food and the boy band BTS has generated economic effects worth €30 billion over the past decade, according to Hyundai Research Institute. Cultural products are an increasingly important element in the Korean economy and they are nurtured and supported by state agencies with units focused on everything from internet comics and animations to music and food.

Aspiring K-pop idols can start training in programmes run by entertainment companies in their early teens, living in dormitories away from their families. Successful trainees who win contracts as performers continue to operate under strict control from the companies, including over their personal appearance and their lifestyle.

Trends take hold quickly in Korea and often spread across Asia before moving outwards into the United States and Europe. Among the current lifestyle trends is the “hocance”, a short break in a hotel usually for a night or two but sometimes for as little as eight hours.

[ The K-pop phenomenon: 'it's pop music on crack' ]

[ ‘They’re very apart from us’: South Koreans sense unification with North is an increasingly distant prospect ]

Most people who take a hocance (the word is a combination of hotel and vacance) choose an affordable hotel but use all its amenities to the fullest. A key part of the experience, which can be undertaken alone or with friends, is photographing it and posting the pictures on social media.

The young man who said he dislikes last-minute types described another trend that involves working for months to achieve your ideal body shape and then paying for a professional studio photo shoot. The others rolled their eyes but he looked blank and when his phone moved a little later I saw his screen saver.

It was a picture of himself flexing in a bodybuilder’s pose, meticulously lit to show off his impressive muscles and perfect eight-pack.