Mi Yuanyuan. a company CEO from Zhejiang province, has a long scar on her forehead and has experienced other side effects after cosmetic surgery in a clinic in South Korea in 2013. [Photo by Feng Zhonghao/For China Daily]

Deception and sham

"Talking with the head of the JW clinic, I believed it had top-notch cosmetic techniques, and in January last year I flew to Seoul with 16 or so other women. I went ahead with the breast surgery, plus a further 12 operations on my face (at the insistence of the program's producers), based on the trust I placed in the show's recommendations for the clinic. That all turned out to be a sham.

"About a month after the surgery, when I began to feel everything was totally disorganized, I called Shanghai Television only to be told that they'd never heard of the show. The surgery on my breasts was a failure, my chin was lopsided, and an implant in my nose had been placed incorrectly."

The clinic rejected Jin's claims, saying the operations went well. The breast surgery had been successful, it said, and the lopsided chin was the result of an imbalance of soft tissue in Jin's face, rather than bone damage sustained during surgery.

Ge Lijun, a spokeswoman for JW Plastic Surgery Korea, confirmed the clinic had taken part in Bucket List 2, but she refused to vouch for the authenticity of the program. She claimed the show had been broadcast by a cable channel affiliated with STV, but that the Shanghai station had not commissioned it.

The clinic said it always advises potential patients to be cautious when mulling plastic surgery, to consult family members before making a decision, and to be prepared to accept the changes that will be made to their bodies.

Jin said she wonders if she was naive to believe the bona fides of TV programs she had regarded as documentaries, but which she now believes are essentially advertisements.

"I partly blame myself for making this reckless decision. I have discovered about 200 other Chinese women who have gone through similar things in South Korea, and I know that many faces have been ruined by the deficiencies in some clinics and by illegal operations in others, and also by unscrupulous medical brokers."