Liposuction and Plastic Surgery Information - Facelift patient stopped by police

Facelift patient stopped by police - passport photo no longer matches

Friday, 02 February 2007

A Chinese woman who had travelled to South Korea for a face lift procedure had difficulty returning to China, when immigration officials at Shanghai Airport noticed that her passport photograph bore little resemblance to her appearance after the surgery.

Fan Hongxiang, an immigration officer working at the airport says that the incident was not isolated, and that officers encounter such problems almost every month, due to the increasing number of Chinese residents who travel to South Korea for plastic surgery.

Staff were sceptical of the degree of change to the traveller's face, since the passport photo had a square shapre, but after the plastic surgery, the woman had an oval shaped face. The woman had undergone a procedure to augment and extend her chin, while at the same time having her jaw-line reshaped.

In this case, the lead officer, Chen Liu, had to contact the woman's employer for copies of her work permit to be faxed over. After speaking to her family, the officer let the woman go through with the recommendation that her passport be replaced with the "after facelift" photo.

The case is similar to that of a Japanese tourist travelling through Shanghai Airport in April 2006, who had undergone liposuction and body contouring, resulting in a weight loss of 35kg, and dramatically altering his physical appearance from that on his passport. After enquiries with the private clinic that performed the procedure, and contact with the Japanese Embassy, the man was allowed on his way.

Tags: China, facelift, humor,