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As the Chinese New Year comes back around, Matt Kovac reports on how some Taiwanese are spending their dollars on a new face face ahead of the festivitiesTaipei - Jane Li from Hong Kong doesn't mind suffering for her beauty. And it's just as well.
Sporting two black eyes and a nose swollen like a small orange, Li looks like she has gone 10 rounds with a heavy weight boxer.
Despite the bruises and bandages, she still manages a wry smile at the thought of her 'perfect' new nose while recuperating at a plastic surgeon's clinic in Taipei.
"It's not that painful," she said, after the 1-hour operation that cost 40,000 new Taiwan dollars (1,247 US dollars).
"And anyway, I don't care because I want to have a cuter and thinner nose in time for the Chinese Lunar New Year festivities," she said.
Li, in her early 50s, isn't the only one.
In Taiwan, around a million face-changing procedures were performed last year, double the number from five years ago, with the Lunar New Year holiday proving the most popular time for a new visage.
And Dr Lee Chiu-heng, 41, who runs the B.G. Aesthetic & RF Laser Centre is happy to oblige.
"Business is booming and I am fully booked up," said the surgeon who graduated from UCLA's medical school in California.
"The extended 10-day holiday this year means people have time to recover from surgical procedures away from curious colleagues and nosey neighbours," he added.
The public's altered perspective on cosmetic surgery has also largely lessened the stigma associated with it and improving standards in surgical procedures are helping the industry flourish.
Of more than 300 certified plastic surgeons in Taiwan, more than half practice cosmetic surgery, a major rise from the 15 doctors a decade ago.
Taiwanese women are increasingly asking their surgeons for wider eyes, longer noses and bigger breasts - features not typical of the race.
To accommodate such demands, surgeons in the region have invented techniques not used in the west. The most requested procedure by far in Taiwan and the rest of Asia is a form of blepharoplasty, in which a crease is created above the eye by scalpel or by needle and thread creating a western look.
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