Beauty and the Breast

As October ends, so does Breast Cancer Awareness month. But general breast awareness in Hong Kong, as it does every month, will continue. The past year has seen a rash of breast-related news take the city by storm. Think back to how long the scandals with Gillian Cheung and PAAG dominated the news. And remember when Gaile Lok’s confession about her breast surgery was on the cover of every local magazine? Let’s face it, breasts are shoo-in headline material. Better-endowed, today’s Hong Kong women talk about their breasts more openly. But what’s really happened, and what was it like in the past? Time for a recap.

Though traditionally known to have a more uptight attitude toward breasts and breast implant surgeries, Hong Kong women were no latecomers to the implant game. “The first breast implant surgery in Hong Kong was done shortly after the world’s very first breast implant surgery. That was somewhere around the 60s or the 70s,” says Dr. Edmund Chan, a specialist in plastic surgery.

But it doesn’t take a specialist to notice that the breast industry was still an underground, though legitimate, business. “There have always been doctors doing plastic surgeries in Hong Kong. It is not a new medical area or profession,” says Dr. Chan. “But women used to go to the mainland or Southeast Asian countries for their surgeries because it was until recently a very clandestine business. But now you can hear girls openly talking about their augmented breasts in bars. It is no longer anything to be ashamed of.”

Ask any plastic surgeon and he or she is likely to tell you that breast implant surgeries are no longer a taboo. “There are no statistics on the sheer number of plastic surgeries conducted every year,” says Dr. Anthony Mak, a plastic surgeon at the Hong Kong Plastic and Cosmetic Surgery Center. “But it is widely acknowledged in the medical industry that more breast implant surgeries are being done now. And the age of the women who get implants is getting younger. Breast implant surgery is becoming more common now as people have come to realize that it is not as dangerous as they thought. The advancement in technology over the past 40 years has assuaged people’s skepticism.”

You can bet that while saying this, many doctors are laughing their way to the bank, for this kind of plastic surgery costs something between a $40,000 and $100,000 per procedure. But surgeons aren’t the only ones bagging the cash.

Surgeries are not for the faint-hearted, especially after the incident earlier this year where six women had their breasts completely removed when their augmentation surgery went horribly wrong (specifically, the gel, called PAAG, turned out to be toxic). So naturally, plenty of affordable alternatives to surgery have sprung up: Gums to increase your bust, herbal breast-enhancing pills and creams, breast-enhancing spa treatments, and mysterious Chinese medicines that many celebrities claim helped with their rapid “breast growth.” Among these, breast-enlarging biotechnology, backed by questionable science, seems to be the most sought after. “People now opt for risk-free, natural breast-enhancing treatments. Our business is booming as our high-tech equipment promises permanent enlargement,” says Hody Lau of the marketing department at Healthy International Beauty Centre. Whether or not the scientific method is involved or not, the inventors of these alternatives get their fair share of desperate patrons.