A 15-year-old Chinese girl, Lee Hee Danae, who underwent a series of radical plastic surgery procedures, has shot to Internet stardom after photos showing her transformation post-surgery were circulated widely on Chinese social media.
The teenage girl from the Henan province of central China posted pictures and video clips of herself online after undergoing cosmetic surgery to alter her eyes, jaw, chin, and other parts of her body, including her breasts.
Her chin was altered to make it look more pointed.
She became an instant celebrity on Chinese social media, with many saying that she was “too beautiful to look at.”
Many Chinese netizens said she looked like a doll, while others joked that her white skin and pointed chin made her look like a “snake spirit,” a reference to popular Chinese folk tales that link unusually fair skin with “snake spirits.”
However, some online viewers argued that the photos were digitally altered.
Suspicion that the photos were digitally altered arose after some viewers noticed that she appears in some photos with blue-green eyes, but with brown eyes in others.
A Chinese website, CBG , reported that the girl went through cosmetic surgery to win back her boyfriend.
According to The Shangaiist , a comment about her on the Chinese Internet portal Tencent , received nearly 30,000 likes.
The comment said, “A 15 year-old-girl with breasts as large as these? I must be drunk.”
Her Weibo account has amassed about 400,000 likes, according to the Daily Mail .
Weibo is the most popular social media site in China. It combines features of both Facebook and Twitter.
Her Weibo account appears to confirm the claim that she is only 15-years-old. Her birth date was given as May, 1999, according to the Shangaiist . But many doubt the truth of her age declaration, saying she is likely older than 15 years.
The case exemplifies the growing trend in China that has caused more women to undergo extreme cosmetic surgical procedures to change their physical appearance ostensibly as a way of enhancing their attractiveness.
The most popular procedures involve cosmetic alteration of the eyes to make them wider, the jaw line and chin to give a more pronounced “v” or heart shape that is considered attractive.
Eyelid surgeries and rhinoplasty are also very popular.
In recent years, thousands of Chinese women have been streaming to South Korea to have their faces fixed by the country’s surgeons to make them look like popular South Korean celebrities. Some have their appearance so radically altered that hospitals have to issue special plastic surgery papers confirming their passport identities.
The cosmetic surgery industry is booming in South Korea, and illegal clinics are springing up daily with frequent media stories of tragically botched cosmetic surgery attempts.
The growing popularity of cosmetic surgery is not limited to women. According to Shangaiist , recently, a Chinese man underwent complicated cosmetic surgery to look like a Chinese solder, Lei Feng, whose image the Chinese communist party used in the 1960s for propaganda purposes.
[Images Sina Weibo via Shangaiist]