The documentary “Never Perfect” was the final of four films shown during Asian Heritage Month.

The film explored the relationship that Asian-American women have with their bodies, self images, cultural influences, families and histories.

The documentary was sponsored by the Asian Cinema Organization and the Asian Heritage Month Organizing Committee.

Eastern student Robert Gattermeir attended the film discussion because he is in a modern Japanese history course taught by Jinhee Lee, coordinator of Asian studies program and assistant professor of history.

Cosmetic surgery is a major topic for a lot of cultures and seeing how different people handle it is interesting, Gattermeir said.

The film follows the life of a young Vietnamese woman, Mai-Anh, as she makes decisions about plastic surgery and explores the external influences that shape her decision.

The controversial surgery that the documentary presents is double eyelid surgery. Double eyelid surgery is a procedure where the eyelid is cut and then stitched to create a crease in the eye like that of a Caucasian.

The documentary follows Mai-Anh’s struggle with her decisions to undergo double eyelid surgery and explores the reasons why Asian-American women go through the surgery.

The movie explains, even prior to western influence, Asian society revered large eyes as being beautiful.

The documentary explains, for some Asian-Americans, there is a fundamentally Asian reason for wanting the surgery.

John Van Uytven, a junior history major, said in the film, Mai-Anh said she knows that doing the cosmetic surgery will only temporarily make her feel happy.

Because of this, Van Uytven said he questions why Mai-Anh would have the surgery if it isn’t going to make her continually happy. In the documentary, others see the surgery as a way for Asian-American women to make themselves look more Caucasian.

In the movie, Mai-Anh says it is an aesthetic procedure and that will make her look more beautiful, but it is not a way of abandoning her Asian heritage.

“It’s not a solution for anything you have to go to the root cause of why you want to change your appearance,” Lee said.

“When you think of the root cause, physical appearance is one of the numerous things you can change,” Lee said. “So there are even easier things you can change, like facial expressions; maybe smile more.”

Silas Pepple can be reached at 581-7942 or at sepepple@eiu.edu.