The high school student gets off the train from Qingdao, Shandong province, and walks into a plastic surgery clinic in Beijing`s central business district of Guomao.

Outside the hospital in Shenzhen, I met a woman surnamed Liu from a smaller city in Guangdong Province, who had also come from a consultation.

One Shanghai cosmetic surgery hospital estimated last year that half its customers were undergoing operations for career-related reasons. Most of those were women.