In the cozy beauty salon the masseuse casually asked me, "Can I touch your nose?" I was quite surprised but answered, "Of course!"

She touched my face softly with her fingertips and continued, "Is your nose real? It's beautiful!"

The capital of Jilin province, Changchun, is famous for automobile factories and movie parks, but fashion is also a big deal in this city of 7.5 million people. Clothing stores and beauty salons can be found on every street corner.

Even so, on my recent visit to the beauty salon, the masseuse's question took me by surprise. She explained that a previous client had shouted, "Don't touch my nose! You'll break it!" when she had felt something hard in it.

The masseuse then realized the woman's nose had been constructed through cosmetic surgery and always asked afterwards, if she saw a tall and straight nose, if she could touch it, or it was real.

I feel fortunate to have a natural "beautiful" nose, but the beauty parlor incident got me thinking about our preoccupation with so-called "beauty".

Today, people have more choices. We can do all kinds of things to our bodies and with enough money, we can even change our sex.

Although we always say a person's beauty should be defined by their character, it's hard not to judge someone by their looks on first meeting them.

Every coin has two sides. If you want to become more beautiful you must suffer for it. Just think about all those starving models. I don't know how much cosmetic surgery these girls undergo, but I do know the pain of two simple ear piercings.

I wanted to get them done properly, so I went to a cosmetic surgery hospital. There were many pictures of noses, chins and mouths on the wall. I asked the doctor if it was painful to pierce ears? She replied in the affirmative, but said compared with pain to the mouth or nose, it was negligible.

She pulled out an ear-piercing gun, aimed at my earlobe, and I felt a quick sharp shock in my ear. Luckily, I only suffered for several weeks from not being able to have a good shower. But more radical surgery can cost a life.

In November 2010, rising singer Wang Bei and her mother walked into a plastic surgery hospital in Wuhan, Hubei province, to have their cheekbones trimmed. Half way into the supposedly simple operation, Wang choked on her blood and eventually died. She was only 24. Her mother underwent her surgery without a hitch, but fainted upon hearing the horrible news.

So, there has been a lot of discussion about the extent to which we should go to make ourselves more beautiful, and why.

What's the attraction of spending a huge amount - a common rhinoplasty surgery will cost 3,000 to 20,000 yuan ($462-3,076) - and dealing with the possible results, that include a leaking nose, four eyebrows, strange breasts or other problems?

In ancient China, it was thought that one's body was handed down by parents and ancestors, so nothing should be done to change them. This is an old-fashioned view, but those who are willing to take the risks of cosmetic surgery might be going too far.

Nothing is impossible nowadays, but I sincerely hope that people in the future don't have to worry about their noses being touched - whether they are real or manmade.

For China Daily