China seeks to regulate cosmetic surgery as the procedures get more creative...and deadlier
“Iam so happy. Soon, I’ll be beautiful,” Xiaoran told one friend at noon on May 2, just before she underwent a five-hour cosmetic surgery procedure involving liposuction and breast implants in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province.
Two days later, the 33-year-old online celebrity, who has over 130,000 fans on microblogging platform Weibo, lay in a hospital’s intensive care unit due to infection and multiple organ failure. After two months of fighting for her life, she died on July 13.
On July 15, the Hangzhou Municipal Health Commission announced that the hospital which performed Xiaoran's procedures was responsible for her death due to its “lack of knowledge before the surgery, malpractices during the operation, and negligence in after-care,” and promised to regulate the booming cosmetic surgery industry locally. Reports on similar malpractices, accidents, and deaths nationwide have also led to calls for more official oversight on the unregulated plastic surgery sector and for greater public awareness of the risks of cosmetic procedures.
While some netizens took to social media to wonder why an already slim and good-looking online celebrity would get liposuction, others could relate to Xiaoran's anxieties about her appearance against the prevalent beauty standard of “pale, youthful, and thin.”
Tan Yunfei is the editorial director of The World of Chinese. She reports on Chinese language, food, traditions, and society. Having grown up in a rural community and mainly lived in the cities since college, she tries to explore and better understand China's evolving rural and urban life with all readers.
