SuChin Pak was on an episode of the Oprah show awhile back that was titled “Children Ashamed of the Way They Look.” The episode was about how people from different racial groups do not see themselves as beautiful because they do not look like the blonde haired, blue eyed “All-American.” Pak is an MTV host and correspondent who is Korean.

She told Oprah about the huge importance that the eye crease (a fold of eyelid skin that makes the eye look larger) plays in the Asian perception of beauty. She told Oprah and her audience that surgery to get an eye crease is the number one plastic surgery in Asia. I was very intrigued and interested in hearing what she had to say, which is why I watched the show, but there was a part of her story that brought up questions for me.

Pak relayed to Oprah a story about when she was a little girl and was passed around the table for her relatives to examine her eyes to see if the desired eye crease was present. She said this type of thing was commonplace and a great focus on the eye crease is the norm in most Asian families. So…my first assumption (before hearing Pak’s story about her family,) was that the eye crease focus was brought on by Western ideals being portrayed in the media, advertising, fashion, etc. But if that ideal is being so strongly enforced in the home, who’s to blame for it continuing?

Prior to watching this show, I knew nothing about said eye crease. It would have never occurred to me to check Ella’s eyes to see if she has a crease or not; and I actually haven’t thought to look even after seeing this show. Do you think Asian adoptees being raised in a transracial home will be as strongly affected by this standard of beauty as Asians being raised by other Asians?

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