EunSuk Ji (Jenny) from Korea When I was young, I read many kinds of books, including fairy tales. Most of the books described heroes who were handsome and heroines who were beautiful. So, I believed I had to be beautiful if I wanted to become a great person. It was a hard time for me. Whenever I looked at someone who was more beautiful than me, I was stressed. As I grew up, I began to realize outer beauty was not so important to make someone good. I remember a friend of mine who was so beautiful that every classmate wanted to talk with her, but she was very arrogant. She believed that she could do everything she wanted because she was so beautiful, but she lost friends one by one. My poor friend! But she learned a good lesson: inner beauty is more important than outer beauty. After she learned that, she changed her attitude and made friends again. In the Korean version of the story Cinderella, there are two stepsisters. One was very beautiful and very kind. Another was very stingy and bad. Because the prince wanted to find the girl with a missing shoe, the prince and the beautiful sister of the two stepsisters got married and lived happily ever after. In many novels and fairy tales, as in Cinderella, the main characters are usually beautiful or handsome. Beauty is representative of good deeds and kindness. In our society, beauty also gives us many advantages such as having a good social life, making friends, getting a job, and getting a promotion. Whenever, we look at good-looking guys and girls, we usually form stereotypes. We think he or she is a good and kind person. This is why cosmetic surgery is so popular in our society Whenever I see TV advertisements, I feel that these things make us believe beauty is very important--especially physical attractiveness. Although we say that inner beauty is more valuable, we often look to plastic surgery to make us more beautiful. There seems to be a boom in plastic surgery. It is surprising to realize the number of people who try it is increasing day by day. It is true that attractive people get a job easily. For example, we know good-looking guys usually get higher scores on job interviews. So, what is real beauty? I want to say that inner beauty is the real one because if someone has beauty in his soul, he looks like a really beautiful person. The beauty looked at with eyes doesn't last forever. Instead of concentrating on outer beauty, we should concentrate on inner beauty. The point is that inner beauty is more important than outside beauty. So, if we make the effort to make our minds beautiful, we'll be happier.
Beauty is in the Eye of the Beholder | How Important are Good Looks? | In Search of Beauty | My Sister Ligia | Communicating about Beauty Stories about beauty: International Folktales about Beauty Return to: Reflecting on Beauty | Issue 16 | Home Page TOPICS Online Magazine - ©1997-2007 - Sandy and Thomas Peters - topics .mag@gmail.com
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