I had heard about the obsession with eyelid surgery among Chinese girls and women, and the obsession extends, like much of Chinese culture, across the Korean peninsula as far as Japan.

Korean-American An Na's latest Young Adult (YA) girlpower novel is about that burning question: To do "it" or not to do "it -- san-ga-pu-rhee (the Korean word for blepharoplasty). The title The Fold refers of course to the epicanthic fold over the upper eyelid, covering the eye's inner corner. It is a physical trait most common among people of Central Asian and East Asian descent, but is as also common among ethnic groups is places as far flung as North American (the Inuit and Native American nations), Madagascar, Philippines, Cambodia, Tibet, and Sudan.

Why does "the fold" matter? And why are scores of girls and women in east Asian and other countries wanting to get rid of it? Does it have to do with unflattering references? For example, when England's Prince Philip was talking to some British students on exchange in China he wondered if they would soon have "slitty eyes". That sort of rubbish. Or is it more because of the fascination with things western among these countries and the urge to emulate: from bowling to baseball in Japan, and to the tendency in all Asian animation to give their characters (the nice ones, anyway) huge round eyes. Probably for the same reason women feel they can never be too white or too thin... Let's face it, in this globalized world, we are being force-fed the rich man's idea of what looks good. And "rich" means "western" -- for the time being, anyway…

Eyelid surgery, blepharoplasty, is becoming very commonplace throughout East Asian countries now. For those who have not succumbed to the temptation, or who are fearful of invasive procedures, "eyelid glue" or "eyelid tape" can be used to create the appearance of the "double eyelid" to give the appearance of a "western"-looking eye.

You can puzzle about this obsession all you like, but in the meantime the protagonist of The Fold, Joyce, is not so keen, although she is just more afraid than against it in principle. It is her aunty, to whom the whole family is beholden (she helped them immigrate to the United States), who wishes Joyce to get the cut done. After winning the lottery, "Gomo" lines up Joyce and her family to give them each a gift of her own choice: and Joyce is the lucky recipient of a date with the plastic surgeon. Although not interested, she does want to get the attention of one John Ford Kang, who seems to want to date only "white" girls. It doesn't help that he also seems interested in Joyce's older sister Helen, who is beautiful and popular and can't do anything wrong.

Joyce decides to visit the plastic surgeon Dr Reiner, and a procedure -- of sorts -- is done. When Gomo remarks afterwards that she looks so much more like her sister Helen, Joyce starts to really think. John Ford Kang mistakes her for her sister at a party, too -- and then one of her eyelids drops...

None of this matters though. Joyce had just learned something about her sister, in a rare moment of not being preoccupied with eyelids, and guys and cliques and fitting in and fat knees... The Fold, despite its title is, as you may have guessed, not really about that at all... It's a book about the value of being a sister (sibling) and a friend. Get your head in the game and they will be your BFF no matter what... digging you for who you are... eyelid fold or no eyelid fold...

As big-sis Helen puts it:

It's hard to feel all right about yourself when everything around you is saying you have to look a certain way, act and love a certain way. Or buy this product or take this pill and it will make you better. Make you happy. It's all bull... You have to know what is true to you."

Author An Na says this about why she wrote the book:

...originally, The Fold, was supposed to be a short story, but I never got around to writing it. By the time I was ready to write, I knew it had to be a novel. This was about Joyce and her beautiful, crazy family. I wanted it to be an over the top story about how we all try and fix ourselves. I also wanted it to be about self-acceptance and love of others.

Karmel Schreyer
08 December 2008

Karmel Schreyer writes educational materials for Asian children and is the author of the young-adult novels, Naomi: The Strawberry Blonde of Pippu Town and A Singing Bird Will Come: Naomi in Hong Kong.