雙語閱讀：永遠微笑的嘴角
摘要： 韓國女人一直對各種高風險的整容手術趨之若鶩，只爲讓自己擁有一張如西方人般立體的面容。近幾個月來，一種被稱爲“Smile Lipt”的嘴角整容手術在韓國非常風靡。該手術將嘴角切開再縫合，重新調整上下顎的角度，使得嘴部的線條更柔和。
The rise of the creepy perma-smile
Women in South Korea are resorting to dangerous and painful surgery in their quest for a more western face.
Demand for double jaw surgery, a bone-cutting procedure that involves realigning the upper and lower jaws to achieve a softer silhouette, has soared in the last few months
And now a photograph has appeared on a social networking site seeming to show a woman who has undergone surgery to lift the corners of her mouth into a permanent smile.
Although the photograph, which appeared on Reddit, hasn't yet been authenticated the Huffington Post reports that there is a clinic in South Korea offering this procedure.
The AONE clinic performs the ‘Smile Lipt’ procedure to both lift and curl drooping mouth corners by manipulating the facial muscles supporting the mouth.
A Youtube video produced by the clinic about the procedure explains that some people have sagging mouth corners due to low strength of the muscles that lift the mouth edges, and overly strong jaw muscles that pull the mouth down.
The video says that ‘even among ordinary people, some have beautifully upturned mouth corners,’ and that ‘in general Western people have longer mouths and higher mouth corners than Korean people.’
Once the procedure has been performed the mouth will always been turned up, even when the patient is not smiling.
The Business Insider reports that plastic surgeon at the AONE clinic, Taek Keun Kwon spoke in 2012 about developing the procedure saying:
‘Up until now, mouth corner lift couldn't be widely used due to its ineffectiveness and high risk of side effects such as scars.
‘Downturned mouth corners give off gloomy and melancholy impression.
'On the contrary, upturned mouth corners create bright and smiling appearance as well as confident expression.
‘It is very difficult to elevate mouth corner by just excision and closure of the skin around the mouth corner area. To turn up the mouth corner effectively, it is necessary to weaken the lip depressors to gain unopposed mouth corner lift.’
It appears that there is a growing number of people willing to risk the side effects of such a procedure which include scarring and ‘over correction’ to achieve a ‘upturned’ look.
South Korea has one of the highest rates of plastic surgery in the world so it is little wonder that such a niche procedure has its origins in the country.
It remains to be seen whether the slightly cat-like look will become popular, but thus far the reaction to the photo on Reddit has been more comical than admiring with two top rated user comments being ‘joker’ and ‘Imagine trying to eat noodles or soup with this!'
韓國女人一直對各種高風險的整容手術趨之若鶩，只爲讓自己擁有一張如西方人般立體的面容。近幾個月來，一種被稱爲“Smile Lipt”的嘴角整容手術在韓國非常風靡。該手術將嘴角切開再縫合，重新調整上下顎的角度，使得嘴部的線條更柔和。
據瞭解，目前韓國整容診所AONE正在提供該項手術服務。該診所稱，很多人由於嘴角肌肉的鬆弛和下頜肌肉過於緊繃，嘴角顯得比較下垂。而西方人普遍比韓國人的嘴部弧度更大、嘴部線條更長。通過該項手術，即使平時不笑時，嘴部也將永遠保持上揚的角度。
AONE診所的整形醫生權澤槿(Kwon Taek Keun)在2012年開發該項手術時表示：“下吊的嘴角給人以悲觀憂鬱的印象，而上揚的嘴角讓人感覺積極又充滿自信。”
“不過目前嘴角上揚手術由於其成功率和風險過高等問題還不能廣泛開展。” 權澤槿說。即使如此，願意冒着在臉上留疤或是嘴角被整得過於上翹的風險的人還是越來越多。
韓國是世界上整容率最高的國家，這項新手術是否會受到持續追捧還有待觀察，但是有網民看到照片後表示整容後的效果簡直像“小丑”一樣，“很難想象用這樣的嘴來喝湯和吃麪”。
