Korea to see a culture in which plastic surgery is commonplace and female celebrities look like they have literally been cut out of the same mold.

That brings us back to Ms. Liu. Beauty being in the eye of the beholder, there are very few celebrities in the United States who are universally praised or, for that matter, universally reviled. It's a veritable smorgasbord of "beautiful" people, all on display for a smorgasbord of consumers. Praising words for Ms. Liu, for example, would rarely elicit any response at all. If anything, there seems to be a general consensus to avoid consensus altogether.

That's all well and good for Western celebrities, but for the few Asian faces that emerge in the Western market, it's a whole other story. Many Chinese believe that the latter should be the créme de la créme, the most beautiful Asians on offer. Judging by the heaps of scorn a passing compliment over here garners though, Ms. Liu does not quite make the grade. Her sin, it would seem, is being too classically Chinese.

The issue at hand is fundamentally one of exoticism. In the United States, a Chinese face like Ms. Liu's is both unique and yet familiar in a classic, oriental sense. Look no further than the slanted eyes and rounded contours of Mulan's face to see the Western archetype of Chinese beauty. In Hollywood, when we need a token Asian face, it had better be unmistakably Asian.

In China, however, the pursuit of exoticism frequently means Chinese models are nearly indistinguishable from Western ones. Darker features and slighter builds notwithstanding, just like everything else in China these days, things are moving in a westward direction.

And that's exactly the problem. Beyond the fact that Chinese people, by definition, should look different from Westerners, there is also the disturbing reliance on plastic surgery in the United States that seems to be catching on over here. Nearly 12 million plastic surgery procedures were performed in the United States in 2007. More worryingly, the trend has already spread to other Asian countries, most notably South Korea. The mainland cannot be too far behind, but it does not have to be that way.

Wouldn't it be great if Ms. Liu used her considerable soapbox--at least among young Chinese--to instead advocate a hard look in the mirror by all Chinese people? Would it even be possible to perform a cosmetic touch-up on the collective Chinese self-image, especially coming from a Chinese-American? If so, she could prove once and for all that she is more than just a pretty face.