In general, I believe I can distinguish among people of European, African, or Asian ethnicity/ancestry by their facial appearance (while recognizing that there would be many, many exceptions). Even within these groups I believe I could in many cases distinguish between say a Finn and a Spaniard, but I would probably not be able to distinguish between a Finn and a Swede, or between a Spaniard and an Italian. Similarly, I believe I could distinguish between an Indian and a Korean but not between a Korean and a Chinese or Japanese.
I am wondering if there are sufficient distinguishing facial characteristics among some of the more closely related groups that would enable someone sufficiently acquainted with a group to identify who is who. For example, could an Italian tell who is Italian and who is Spanish by facial characteristics, or could a Chinese tell who is Chinese and who is Korean or Japanese?
This all presupposes that the individuals being compared have several generations of ancestors who are of “pure blood.”
There are distinguishable differences among different ethnicities. This is illustrated nicely by Average Woman Faces.
But the tricky part is that no one is exactly average. And the variances are large enough that there is a lot of overlap. So while the average face of two neighboring countries might be distinguishable, there’ll be people from both countries that look more like people from the other.
I’m pretty good at distinguishing Koreans and Japanese from other ethnicities. And by pretty good, I mean I have about a 50% chance of getting it right (before I know their name or hear them speak), which is not really very good at all. In contrast, I’m terrible at telling if someone is Chinese–there’s simply too much variation for me.
This Spaniard can differentiate between Spaniards and Italians based on the gestures we make, but it takes that. Two groups from both places talking among themselves quietly look the same; it’s when we move from “talking with our hands” to “yelling with our hands” that I can tell us apart. Joe Spaniard, Joe Italian and Joe Portuguese are triplets.
One of my school classmates looks like a clone of Adriano Celentano, which is quite hilarious as my classmate has been a fan since we were kids
I’m like you, jebert. If someone’s obviously Asian, I can tell. I can usually tell whether someone’s of African or European descent, as long as there’s not much mixing of ethnicities in their blood lines. And that’s about the extent of what I can tell based purely on facial characteristics.
Some people look very typical (or stereotypical if you like) of their ethnicity. Even people really from Ireland tell me I look very Irish (the last immigrant in my family was one of my great grandmothers in 1867). Others don’t. And, obviously, many people in many places have diverse backgrounds. And some look very typical of one ethnicity, but don’t happen to be.
Also telling people apart who come from relatively ethnically homogeneous but similar countries, like Korea v Japan v China, tends to go on various cues and assumptions besides facial appearance, even if people get to thinking they are good at distinguishing by facial appearance: dress, mannerisms or situations in which you encounter these people. I think it’s become harder for people who think they can do that as Korea and China (or at least people from China you encounter outside China) got closer to Japanese in ‘first worldness’ of dress, outward behavior and situations where you’d encounter one nationality or the others. Or even if facial features give a clue, it’s much easier if it’s a group of people you can assume are from one place and one or two of them look very ‘typical’ of that ethnicity. Without hearing people speak I don’t have a high rate of guessing among those ethnicities. Speaking of people from those countries. Trying to guess the ethnic heritage of American-born people of northeast Asian descent (assuming you might guess that general area) is going to be pretty random I think with no other info than facial appearance.
**Are you able to distinguish among people of various ethnicities/ancestries by their looks?
**
No.
I’ve learned not to try. As a teacher, I’d be embarrassing myself daily.
Back in the 70s, our teachers were supposed to mark down students’ ethnicities… surreptitiously. But one teacher started laughing and blurted out “Jaz, apparently you’re White according to the records, but your twin sister is Asian.”
From what I’ve seen Japanese seem like they have more angular faces while Koreans have more boxy facial features. However I don’t know if that is a hard and fast rule.
Being able to tell someone’s ethnicity isn’t disrespectful - just observant. People are often so caught up in the idea that they’re a special little snowflake, though; I’ve often seen people get upset about being recognizable as a member of their own family!
In high school I had a good friend who identified as African American. And he was the mid 1980s version of a SJW. Until someone told me, I didn’t know…I assumed he was white. I have another friend who is Native American - strongly identified. I always figured he was white, too.
So I’m going to say no, I’m lousy at it.
(Both of them are mixed race - which is one of the problems with ethnicity in the United States. Most of us have a pretty mixed ethnic background.)
As for Asians, I have a Korean son who when other Korean and Asian people look at him - they see Chinese. He is pretty darn Asian looking - you aren’t going to see Irish looking at him. But regionally its as hard to pin down as it is for Europeans.
From the photography, that quiz suspiciously looks like it has professional models, so it’s pointless. The people who tend to be chosen to be models–especially in Asia and Latin America–by-and-large have certain features (often more European) that really aren’t representative of the vast majority of people from those areas.
Also, as noted above, a still photograph doesn’t reveal a person’s behaviorism, and that often is the most indicative thing about a person’s background.
Wondering how the first part of that sentence adds to what I said since you snipped out the later part of my post saying pretty much exactly the same thing:
“And some look very typical of one ethnicity, but don’t happen to be.”
But on the second part, I believe that’s something that’s become polite to say one believes rather than being literally true. If you know what Irish looks like (a lot of people don’t really) and you see me, and you guess Irish, you’re going strongly with the odds. Not 100% odds, but ‘no way to tell’ if implying zero advantage over random guess is some kind of PC politeness not reality.
But again a lot of people don’t really know what’s ‘typical’ of particular ethnicities they just think they do. And as you also snipped from my quote a lot of people aren’t predominantly of any narrow ethnicity either. So the odds of being right would never be close to 100% considering all cases. And if it’s a matter of saying out loud ‘hey aren’t you X?’ that’s a different question of social convention which isn’t the point here IMO.
Interesting. It’s hard to judge from a single picture, especially when they’re “glam” shots that have been touched up. And some of the women have had cosmetic surgery, which throws everything out. I got a total of 13 of 20 correct overall, but 12 of 14 where I had some confidence in my guess.
[spoiler]Women:
No idea. I guessed Korean. She’s Japanese.
Looks Korean. I was correct.
Obviously Korean.
Looks Chinese or Korean. I guessed Chinese. She’s Chinese.
Too angled. Looks Korean or Japanese. I guess Korean. She’s Japanese.
Too much cosmetic surgery. I guessed Japanese. She’s Chinese.
Poor quality picture. I guessed Japanese correctly.
Looks Korean. She is.
Looks Chinese or Korean. I guessed Chinese correctly.
Too much cosmetic surgery. I guessed Korean. She’s Chinese.
Men:
Looks Chinese or Korean. I guessed Chinese. He’s Korean.
Poor quality picture. No idea. I guessed Korean. He’s Japanese.
Doesn’t look Korean or Japanese. I guessed Chinese correctly.
Obviously Japanese.
Obviously Korean.
Looks Chinese or Korean. I guessed Chinese correctly.
Looks Korean. I guessed correctly.
Obviously Japanese.
Doesn’t look Korean or Japanese. I guessed Chinese correctly.
No idea. I guessed Chinese. He’s Japanese.
I was correct for:
5 out of 7 Chinese,
5 out of 6 Koreans,
3 out of 7 Japanese.
[/spoiler]
You have to actually see a loot of people whose nationality is known, in order to learn to recognize them. If you’ve never traveled to Korea and Japan and China, you don’t have a large enough sample in your recognition data bank.
Once you get away from the extremes, I’m pretty bad at it and usually just assume I’m wrong.
And people don’t necessarily recognize their fellow whatevers either. I worked with an Egyptian woman and people from Mexico and El Salvador kept assuming she was too.
