These Chinese women were stuck at the airport in South Korea due to the fact that it was simply impossible to identify them from their passport photographs. The girls were not at all like themselves, because they were still in bandages, and the postoperative edema had not had time to disappear from their faces. Photos of stranded tourists first appeared in all Chinese media, and then spread literally around the world.
South Korea's plastic surgeons are renowned as some of the best in their field, so it's no surprise that women from most Asian countries, including China and Japan, regularly fly here to go under the knife of real professionals in their field and fix their faces. Many of the patients do not stop with rhinoplasty, facelift or Botox injections alone. They completely redo their faces, and sometimes even create problems during passport control at customs and airports.
There are different types of tourism, and for some time now there have also been trips entirely dedicated to plastic surgery. Due to the active development of this business area, some plastic surgery clinics have begun issuing special certificates to their foreign clients confirming their identity for border control personnel. The new type of documents includes the serial number of the patient's passport, the duration of his stay in the clinic, the name and address of the institution and its official seal.
Travelers who pass through customs with these certificates usually have no problems, no matter what plastic procedures they have gone through. As a rule, the identification procedure in this case takes a little longer, but plastic surgeons eventually still fly home without much difficulty. Unfortunately, three Chinese women who tried to return home almost immediately after surgery were not helped much by certificates from plastic surgeons.
Photo: Nownews
The main problem in the case of plastic surgery on the face is that the body needs some time to recover from such a specific invasive procedure. The three ladies in the title photo, who decided to spend the Golden Week (traditional Chinese holiday) at a plastic surgery clinic in South Korea, had no idea that the recovery process might prevent them from returning home. The girls showed up at the airport still bandaged and swollen, barely recovering from anesthesia, and it was not possible for border guards to identify them from their passport photographs. As a result, the tourists had to stock up on considerable patience before they managed to return to their homeland.
An example of the result of an extreme plastic surgery performed in South Korea: 
Many Internet users took this story as a joke, but in fact it was all true. For example, one commenter wrote the following: "With such a puffy face, even your own mother will not be able to recognize you."
So if you are thinking of flying to another country to see a plastic surgeon there for a nose or facial contouring, spend at least a few days in a hotel before rushing to the airport and going through passport control.
Three Chinese women were not immediately able to get to their homeland from South Korea, from where they returned after plastic surgery: they were not recognized at passport control at the South Korean airport, detained until their identities were clarified, reports Shanghaiist. A photo of three Chinese women with swollen faces and passports in their hands went viral on the Web.
They went to South Korea for plastic surgery during the autumn Golden Week - the main public holiday - the 68th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China.
Plastic surgery in South Korea is relatively cheap, which is why it attracts medical tourists. Two thirds of foreigners come from China.
Swelling and plastic surgery bandages put them in a difficult situation at immigration control, which Chinese netizens learned about on Sunday after Chinese TV presenter Jianhua Hua posted a photo on her Weibo microblogging account, China's equivalent of Twitter.
Photos: Three Chinese Women Detained At Airport After Plastic Surgery Left Them Looking Different From Their... https://t.co/EeLeL7BoXr
— K Remedy (@k_remedy) October 10, 2017
Their appearance was so at odds with the photographs in the passport, the TV presenter explained, which caused questions from the authorities. "Even their mothers wouldn't be able to recognize them," she was quoted as saying by Apple Daily. As clarifies the Chinese edition, women were forced to wait for confirmation of identity.
Plastic surgery has become a Korean national brand. Many foreigners, especially from China, fly to South Korea specifically to get plastic surgery. Incidents at airports, when border guards do not let Chinese citizens through because of a changed appearance, happen very often. This case gained particular notoriety because of the photograph, which many netizens found comical.
As noted on the TecRussia website dedicated to plastic surgery, swelling after facial plastic surgery, in particular nose plastic surgery (rhinoplasty), is a mandatory and inevitable element of the postoperative period, the same as bandages, hematomas and the need to breathe through the mouth.
They do not pass in the first weeks and even months. Swelling of the face occurs after a facelift, on the 2-3rd day after the operation, special swelling is observed near the eyes. The hematoma disappears one or two weeks after the intervention of the surgeon.
In South Korea, women in their quest to look more European have resorted to lifting the corners of their lips, so that a woman can constantly smile without making any effort. Plastic surgery is quite painful and risky, as in case of failure, ugly scars remain on the lips.
Three Chinese women were detained at a South Korean airport because their faces, swollen and bandaged after plastic surgery, did not look like photographs in documents.
A picture of bandaged Chinese women with swollen faces waiting for an immigration decision went viral, with 51,000 likes and 23,000 shares.
The girls traveled to South Korea during the Golden Week celebrations to get plastic surgery.
South Korean plastic surgery clinics are known as some of the best in the world. Women from other Asian countries such as China and Japan regularly fly to South Korea to get their looks done. But often the girls are so transformed that the airport staff cannot identify them with the photo in the passport.
Many clinics offer "plastic surgery certificates" to foreign clients, which help them pass through passport control. These certificates show the patient's passport number, length of stay, name and location of the hospital. Travelers passing through airport customs with these certificates are usually identified by some facial feature that the plastic surgeons have left intact.
But the certificates did not help these three women. Apparently, the Chinese women did not have time to recover, so they went to the airport with swollen and bandaged faces, and the presence of passports and tickets could not convince the immigration officers. How the journey of the Chinese women ended is not reported.