Seeing Double with Eye Puchi

At this very moment, millions of young Japanese girls are scrutinizing their face in the mirror, pinching and poking not at pimples but the surface of their eyelids. The Western world may never quite understand it, but a fold across the eyelids means the difference between being voted Miss Popular and getting your butt kicked.

Strange as it may sound, “monolids,” as we call them, are seen as plain, harsh-looking, even ugly. And so girls born with them will undoubtedly spend some point in their adolescent years “correcting” the situation. Enter Eye Puchi, a stick and glue kit which girls use to create the desired fold. First spread the glue across the eyelid’s edge, then use the two-prong stick to make an indentation. Wait for the glue to set and after a few hours, voilà, you have the eyelids of your dreams.

Through just like do-it-yourself home improvements, not all self-renovations come out perfectly. Some end up with puffy, bloated eyelids. Others’ aren’t nearly as bad but the before and after picture can be so startling that class bullies are sure to take notice. There are online forums in which teenage girls write about their experiences with Eye Puchi. Some love it, but others write about how they were teased the next day at school. “Those with double-fold eyelids have no idea what us girls with monolids have to go through,” one girl posted. Though as the months pass, the bullies settle down and the girls happily transition into their creased-lid lives.

In many ways, American society is far more tolerant of people’s physical differences. It can be the shade of their skin, the color of their eyes, or the texture of their hair which makes them unique. People take pride in being an individual. But in a homogeneous society like Japan, everyone starts off in life with black hair and brown eyes. Some are born with folded eyelids, some aren’t. But because popular trends dictate beauty, some rest easy while the remaining population scrambles to “improve” itself.

Fair or not, one thing for sure, Eye Puchi is raking in the money.

<Related Articles:>
Japanese Eye (July 4, 2007)

 

Himawari

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