SEOUL, South Korea — Liu Liping and two college friends recently toured Seoul on a monthlong vacation funded in part by their parents. They saw the sights. They went shopping.

One night, the three young Chinese women visited the latest hot spot: a plastic surgery clinic.

Ms. Liu, 24, wanted to have her jaw broken and restructured to get a V-shaped face. Dr. Kim Tae-gyu at Braun Plastic Surgery suggested something less drastic. “But look! I have huge bones, I need to do it,” Ms. Liu protested. They settled on removing several millimeters of bone from her chin and cheekbones. Her friends, Wu Haiyan, 26, and Jin Meilan, 25, considered nose jobs.

Cosmetic surgery, pervasive in South Korea, is now the must-do activity for many Chinese visitors.

The lights stay on all night in the Gangnam district, where plastic surgery clinics line the streets. Signs in Chinese beckon visitors. Once they are inside, translators stand ready.

Seizing an opportunity to tap the steady and ubiquitous flow of China’s newly rich who are traveling overseas, South Korea’s government is promoting the country as a place to shop, eat, stay — and perhaps get a nip and a tuck.