“What do you think when someone says beauty?”
The room fell silent for a few moments.
“I think of Minh-Thu,” a member said.
Laughter spread around the room, but once again the question was posed: “What do you think when someone says beauty?”
The answers were different this time.
Phrases like "unique" and "the way someone expresses themselves" received head nods, and then the presentation began.
On Monday, the Asian American Student Association gave a presentation regarding beauty standards for Asian men and women.
For Asian men, there’s a stereotype that men are unattractive. They’re either portrayed as nerds, foreigners or kung-fu masters, secretary of AASA Minh-Thu Dang said in her presentation.
Dang said there are instances where Asian men are held to a different standard due to K-pop and anime.
Exotic, weak, sexy, submissive and foreigner were all words that Dang used to explain the stereotypes of Asian women.
Dang went on to talk about plastic surgery, and how it contributes to beauty standards. In fact, countries like China, Japan, South Korea and India had the third, fourth, fifth and sixth most plastic surgeons in 2015, according to the International Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery.
These surgeries are where beauty ideals begin to differentiate. While the United States does rank first in plastic surgeries performed worldwide, according to ISAPS, the most common surgery in the U.S. is breast augmentation (implants), while in South Korea, it's eyelid surgery.
"A lot of what we know, the surgery, plastic surgery, we know a lot from South Korea with K-pop,” Dang said. "The plastic surgery a lot of them want double eyelids, the chin, the nose, the skin was mainly toward Asian history."
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