| There's no doubt that an obsession with beauty lies at the heart of most of those surgeries and cosmetic enhancements. But I think that there is also a motivation to be "successful". For example, perhaps some of the Asians mentioned in the article feel like they can't be successful in life unless they look (more) Caucasian. I guess it goes along with having a great job, lots of money, a big house, smart and beautiful kids, and high standing the community. Vanity and ambition are clearly connected.
I hesitate to mention this, but there is also a great deal of racism in Asian cultures. I don't mean that Caucasians are perceived to be better than other Asians; I mean that some Asians are perceived to be better than other Asians. I wonder if that has anything to do with the desire to alter "undesirable features". In any case, it's clear to me that some of those cosmetic enhancements are connected to a desire to raise a person's status in society.
On the other hand, aside from radical surgery, I don't think that most cosmetic enhancements such as makeup or hair dye/bleaching constitute "erasing ethnicity". Hair color doesn't have much more effect on appearance than hair styles and it has even less effect than clothing choices. If an article suggested that people around the world were adopting Caucasian hair styles and clothing in order to "erase their own ethnicity", I would say the author misunderstands the nature of fashion.  |