A twist of the knife

THE first cutting comment is the deepest. The advertisement for Hoi See Beauty Centre in a local magazine was unconvincing enough. The literature may have been written in Chinese but the accompanying 'before' and 'after' pictures said it all: you go in fat, stooping and sad, photographed in harsh lighting at an unflattering angle; you walk out upright, thin and happy, your new image immortalised at a different angle in a pool of soft-focus light.

I had agreed to visit some local beauty parlours to find out what treatments they might suggest I need. Being naturally narcissistic, I was confident that I would be turned away with a 'Gosh, young filly, you don't need any beauty treatment!'.

Located on the 19th floor of the Goldmark Centre in Causeway Bay, this beauty clinic is anything but clinical; it looks like a grubby hair salon. A 'beautician' squeezes her blackheads in one corner; her colleague reads a magazine and sings along to Canto-pop in another. Meanwhile consultant Elaine Tse is hardly an advertisement for aesthetic improvement. A hard character whose demeanour wouldn't seem out of place in a fish market, she slurps on her instant noodles during our 'consultation' and answers my questions in a tone as if I had asked her whether her children are illegitimate.

'Your looks aren't too bad,' says Tse generously. 'Lose weight and your face will be nicer, you won't need to use your hair to hide those fat cheeks.' My nose, however, wasn't going to get off so lightly. 'It's too flat and the bridge needs to be higher. See, this is me in our advert: my nose was really flat before - look how sharp it is afterwards.' The pictures look identical though she does look slightly better with make-up in the 'after'' shot. Thankfully, surgery won't be necessary as she claims the salon's 'machine' will make my nose-bridge higher.

It comes as no surprise that she hasn't recommended surgery. Tse was involved in a trial in 1994 when a plastic surgeon was charged with working in association with the clinic to obtain clients through its ads. The Undesirable Medical Advertisement Ordinance prohibits the advertising of any medicine, surgical appliance or treatment for the surgical alteration of a person's appearance. However, beauty clinics get round this by avoiding medical or surgical terms.

Tse suggests I have stitches on my eyes as the natural creases in my eyelids are not 'firm' enough. I can also have eyeliner tattooed on for $1,000 a line, which would apparently stop me from getting wrinkles caused by dragging the eyelid when removing make-up. This could all be done by Tse on the spot. The thought of a woman who can't even apply her nail varnish in a straight line coming anywhere near my eyes with a needle sends me into immediate spasm. So far so good. My ego hasn't been shattered ...

much. Then I'm asked to undress. Silence.

'Wah! Your thighs are really chunky!' says Tse. 'I've had three kids and even I'm not that fat.' Before I can retaliate with a theory of big bones being hereditary she starts telling me her plan of action. For a mere $6,000, her 'diet machine' would make me slimmer. She won't go into any more detail. 'How can I explain it to you when you're not in this field? Just trust me, it'll take two inches from everywhere. I guarantee it or I'll give you your money back.' I tell her I'II think about it, grab my clothes and flee in shame.

Next I visit the Petrix Beauty Institute around the corner. Here, at least the beauticians are passably attractive and dressed in overalls rather than jeans. Lithe women with enviably slim thighs and less fat than lettuce, swan around in face-masks and towels. At first glance the beauty consultant Angela Chan agrees that other than the absent bridge on my nose, surgery won't be necessary. She is horrified, however, that I weigh 50 kilos. 'Oh, you do need to diet, you even have fat on your back. Lose five pounds [approximately two kilos] and you'll become very pretty.' She also proposes a diet machine, although she is far more forthcoming about the mechanics. 'It sends electrical currents through your body that melt your fat away. Afterwards you'll feel your whole body has done exercise.' I wonder if sticking my fingers into a socket would have the same effect. 'After my last kid I put on 30 pounds but lost it in two months using this machine.' My whole body, I am told, could be done for $20,000.

Squeezing my breasts, she is disconcertingly complimentary when I ask her advice on implants. 'Why do want them to be bigger? They're already so big.' The words echo around my head to be repeated to my partner with exaggerated gusto. 'Your breasts are beautiful but they've dropped a bit - we can make them firmer and higher. You should use our machines rather than have surgery; implants would cost $30,000 a pair; liposuction costs at least $10,000 per area and you have to wear ugly pressure pants for months afterwards.' She offers to introduce me to a cosmetic surgeon but refuses to reveal his name. 'He's a friend of the boss,' she says.

Instead, I decide to go to the best: a top plastic surgeon and former president of The Hong Kong Society for Plastic and Reconstructive Surgeons who can't be named here because of the ban on medical advertising. The walls of his surgery in Central are covered with impressive certificates and his waiting room reassuringly filled with attractive tai-tais. One woman, wearing head-to-heel Chanel and enough jewellery to pick up Radio Luxembourg, comes out looking as if she's been beaten up. Her eyes have swollen to frog-like proportions and she seems to have just stepped off the operating table. Nonchalantly she slips her Chanel shades back on and sashays out.

Rather than tell me what he thinks I need, this doctor asks me what I don't like about myself. Keeping my options open, I gesture to everywhere. Again my nose comes under attack. 'It's a little on the flat side, but cute. The upper limit of cute though, any more turned up and you'd look piggy. All you need is a little augmentation here,' he gestures to the bridge. 'I use a safe kind of artificial silicone, unlike the kind you insert into breasts. It doesn't dissolve or move.' My chubby cheeks could be remedied, he says, by cutting a buckle of fat from the inside of my mouth. These two treatments would cost me $25,000 and could be done in his office under local anaesthetic.

He accurately guesses my weight (50 kilos) and height (1.6 metres) and suggests I lose a couple of kilos. 'You have a real big stomach,' he tells me, 'but you just need some exercise.' He suggests liposuction on my abdomen, thighs, calves, knees and upper arms. This could be done in his office over two sessions which he says would save me $20,000 on hospital fees. 'The scars will be negligible. With the new technique there's no bruising and no pain. We give you a lot of medicine to stop the bleeding.

You'll be able to walk out of here.' Liposuction would cost $50,000 all in and he could he fit me in almost immediately.

I can't ignore the irony. I started the day as a thin, happy person standing upright, and ended as a fat, stooping, sad person. I buy myself a cream cake and a soft focus lens to commiserate.