Beijing — An increasing number of China’s politicians are bringing a new meaning to the age-old Oriental philosophy of “saving face.”
British new source Telegraph.co.uk reports that more than 500 Chinese government officials are being treated annually at the Plastic Surgery Hospital at Beijing’s Union Medical College.
Telegraph.co.uk quotes Plastic Surgery Hospital senior surgeon Chen Huanran, M.D., as saying, “The officials have to go on television much more than before and have to make many more appearances in public. They want to make sure they have the strong features that government officials are supposed to have.”
According to Dr. Chen, the number of cosmetic surgery procedures on government officials has risen quickly in recent years. He notes that more than 20 percent of his patients are government officials, and adds that operations on high-ranking officials are carried out under cover of darkness because they prefer “solitude and remote locations.”
“We bring them into the clinic at night, when the hospital is shut and we have got rid of all the patients,” Dr. Chen is quoted as saying.
The most popular procedures are eyelid lifts and facial-smoothing procedures such as Botox injections and use of other fillers, Dr. Chen says.
Plastic surgery is now a multibillion-dollar-a-year industry in China, according to Xinhua, the official government news agency, and is growing at the rate of 20 percent annually.
