Beauty exchanged for plastic

God created the world with a wonderful assortment of people, boasting numerous amounts of unusual shapes and sizes. Within those bodies are an assortment of characteristics that give us our facial features: big eyes, slanty eyes, small eyes, long noses, short noses, flat noses, crooked noses, thin lips, fat lips and the list goes on. And the body -- the same, many shapes and sizes.

You've all probably had a glimpse at Baywatch some time or another, therefore one is totally aware of the bodies and faces that flaunt the TV screen. Voluptuous bodies, sensual lips and well-formed, well... not all completely by nature. Perhaps the odd one is lucky enough to possess the perfect body and the perfect face, but generally speaking, in this day and age, many people choose cosmetic surgery. From what I am led to believe, the popular practice overseas is to have full-bodied, sensual lips and a well-formed chest.

Anyway, what is the perfect body and the perfect face supposed to be? In the eyes of God, all are beautiful in one way or another. In Western culture, thin lips are not considered attractive and neither are large noses for that matter. For the Asian person, it is the opposite. In other words, what the Westerner finds unattractive, the Asian finds attractive; and what the Asian finds unattractive, the Westerner finds attractive. It's a silly world. Even the color of our skin is a good example.

Overseas women inject their lips with silicon, which, I am led to believe, is not safe. And they inject the same substance into their breasts (or have silicon implanted). Here in Jakarta, women are taking it out of their lips. As for their breasts, well I don't know.

The other day, I was struck by the funniest sight of two female neighbors with bandages over their lips and eyelids, looking rather much like Groucho Marx gone wrong! These ladies seemed not to have been previously crippled by disfigurement or abnormalities. However, they obviously believe different. One made her top lip thinner -- I'd do anything to have thicker lips. As for the eyelids, the Chinese look away was taken away.

If I had to change anything, it would be my nose, which always seems to attract admiration for one reason or another. My fellow neighbors would love to have my nose, or part of it. How ridiculous and funny life is! Even my Indonesian husband adores it.

C. PARRY

Jakarta