The 'Graduation Gift' Plastic Surgery Trend Splits Korean High School Classrooms
Getting double-eyelid or nose surgery as a high school graduation present is common enough in Korea that most of your students know someone who has done it, or is planning to, and they genuinely disagree about whether that's fine.
Park English2026-09-123 min read
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Every February and March, right around graduation season, this comes up again in Korean classrooms whether you plan for it or not. A student mentions a cousin got "ssangꡡapul" surgery — double-eyelid surgery — as a graduation present. Someone else says their mom is taking them to Apgujeong over break. By the third comment, half the room has an opinion and the other half is uncomfortable, which is exactly the tension a good discussion class runs on.
This is a real, ongoing thing in Korea, not a hypothetical. Cosmetic clinics cluster around Gangnam's so-called "beauty belt," and graduation-season procedures for teens are a documented pattern in Korean media, though exact numbers vary by survey and year, so don't quote a specific percentage to your class. Minors generally need parental consent for elective procedures under Korean medical law — worth mentioning, but if a student asks for the exact legal age or process, tell them to check rather than inventing a number yourself.
Level: high school (intermediate to advanced). Works for classes of 6–15 students, 40–50 minutes.
Lesson structure
- Warm-up (5 min). Ask: "What's a normal graduation gift in Korea?" Let them list — money, a phone, a trip. Someone will mention surgery. Don't force it; if nobody does, bring it up yourself as "some families do this too."
- Vocabulary (5 min). Pre-teach: cosmetic surgery, confidence, pressure, natural, consent, standard (as in "beauty standard").
- Reading the pros/cons table aloud (5 min). Students pick one point they agree with most and one they disagree with most, before any speaking.
- Line debate (15 min). One side of the room is "agree," the other "disagree." Students physically stand on a line between the two based on how strongly they feel, then defend their position. Move people who change their mind mid-debate — that's the best part of this format.
- Closing task (10 min). In pairs, write three sentences of advice to a fictional friend considering surgery before college. This keeps it personal without making anyone confess their own opinion on record.
Pros and cons to put on the board
| For | Against |
|---|---|
| It's a personal choice, same as a haircut or a diet | Teens are too young to fully weigh a permanent decision |
| Can boost confidence going into college and job interviews | Reinforces one narrow beauty standard rather than challenging it |
| Common enough that it's not really taboo among students anymore | Cost pressure on families, and comparison pressure on kids who don't get it |
| Parents see it as investment in their child's future | Risk of complications, and normalizing surgery as a fix for insecurity |
Keep this table on the board the whole class. It gives quieter students something to point at instead of having to generate an opinion from nothing.
One thing to watch: this topic sits close to some students' actual bodies and actual plans. Don't let the debate turn into commentary on a classmate's face, even indirectly. If it drifts there, redirect to the fictional-friend task early.