I’m a white American and I’m totally unable to differentiate between Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese people visually, though my area as a large Korean population so that if I bump into an Asian in day to day life, they are probably Korean. Vietnamese and Chinese people make up a visible, but smaller, minority, and there aren’t many Japanese people at all (most Japanese in the US seem to congregate on the West Coast and Hawaii)
Surprisingly, as a guy with primarily British and German ancestry (like most white Americans), I have actually been mistaken for Slavic on more than one occasion.
I’ve said this before about this test: I’m convinced that the photos in that test are deliberately chosen to trip up people who have some sense of the different typical facial features. I think the fact that they can do this only serves to reinforce the notion that there are typical facial features of the different east asian ethnicities.
I don’t see why it’s “absurd” to think that such differences exist. The greater degree of population isolation mentioned by psychonaut would seem to explain it easily. I mean, if you concede that a southern European looks different from a northern, why should all of east asia have a totally homogenous look? Where’s the logic in that? True, the differences may sometimes be subtle, and no one claims to have 100% accuracy in distinguishing. But it’s not necessarily non-existent.
That’s precisely the point I mean to make, though. Going purely off facial features, in the absence of other signals like clothing or hairstyle, you can’t tell a Korean from a Chinese from a Japanese.
It should be enough to give us a hint as to whether there’s a screaming obvious difference, though. If the difference were as clear-cut as some people make it, by now at least one poster should have come back and said that they easily aced the test, and maybe pointed out some of these alleged distinctive features. Yet there’s been nothing but grumbling about how there aren’t enough samples or the photos aren’t “Asian” enough. Nobody can even explain what would signal them to assign a face to a nationality.
I can easily describe the difference between a Sicilian and a Swede, or a Greek and a German (I presume everybody knows the stereotypical differences, so I won’t repeat them). Just as easily we can characterize the difference between southeast Asian and east Asian. More difficult is countries that are in close proximity and share a land border (or a nearby sea border). Nobody says with certainty that they can reliably pick a Frenchman from a German from an Englishman, and those are three countries with a similar situation with respect to China, Korea, and Japan. Seriously, look at Korea on a map and tell me there’s any reason why there is any reason that it should not be entirely homogenized with China.
Uh because two of them are islands that have not had much* intermixing of their populations’ gene pools with either the other island or the Chinese mainland for many thousands of years? Not at all similar to Europe which relatively is quite a hodgepodge.
*Pleae note, not zero. In particular it is felt that some of Japan’s population are descendents of the Yayoi, who were likely of Korean or possibly Han origin, coming over about 400-300 BC. Still, that’s over 2000 years of relative isolation genetically, and over 10K other than that one significant influx. What part of this is not understandable?
I live in Orlando, Florida. I can usually spot European tourists, but it is based on clothing, haircuts and in some cases body language. I’ve had Polynesian friends that said they have problems in the Southwest US because they were mistaken for Mexicans.
In Orlando, the worst thing to be mistaken for is a Canadian. All my friends in tip positions hate Canadians, since they are the worst tippers in their opinion.
Even without isolation, selection may play a role. I once read an article (sorry, no cite) that Africa’s Bushmen, long assumed to be an “isolated” group partly because they look very different from other South Africans, actually have genes not so different from their neighbors. The article concluded that they do take “foreign” mates, but prefer such mates who look like Bushmen.
Similarly, Northern Thailand is famous for an abundance of beautiful-faced women. I’d guess this is due more to social factors (including perhaps acquiring “foreign” but “beautiful” mates) than some “beauty mutation” unique to Northern Thailand.
Assuming we’re still talking about the “test” with pictures of teens wearing face costumes and making faces, I’m surprised anyone here is taking that “test” seriously. A scientist would have provided remarks about his/her methodology, etc.
Uh, OK. I noticed you skipped any mention of why China and Korea shouldn’t be completely homogenized by now, so I’ll assume that you have seen that point and conceded it. With regard to Japan, you need only compare it with England to see how populations can mix with the mainland in a relatively short amount of time.
Finally, the best way you could prove your point would be to point out that there is a notable difference between the populations. Go on; find a stereotypical Korean and Chinese and Japanese photo somewhere and explain what makes them special. Then we can find some other photos and find similarities. The way this works is to find a visible difference and then find an explanation for it; not finding a potential explanation and then claim that therefore there must be a potential difference.
Because Han China (not the current geographic China) and Korea have been physically seperated. That the ‘Barbarian’ tribes that seperated Han China and Korea were not Han and genetically different. This includes the Manchu’s who look different from the Han. Very limited intermixing. Han Chinese never conquored Korea.
Be curious to see the Genghis Khan genetic link for Koreans versus Han Chinese. And the Genghis Khan link between different parts of China.
So, no, that point is not conceded on the Han China Korea link.
Alllooksame test is dubious at best. Other posters have pointed out sampling errors. what’s to say the person that put this together lied or completely gamed the system.
Keep in mind, that what I and other posters are saying is that in a percentage of cases it is patently obvious if someone is Han, Korean or Japanese. No one is saying that all the time they can make the distinction.
Uh, you’d be wrong to think I conceded the point. I do not think that you appreciate how insular these Asian cultures have traditionally been compared to European gene pools. England relatively has been populated, repopulated and mixed up many times.
And again, I couldn’t even do that with two Chinese dialects, or even two Asian languages - so?
Alright then. Someone find a picture of what you call a stereotypical Han, or Korean, or Japanese, explain what makes it so, and we’ll all be enlightened. Given the “evidence” this should not be a difficult task at all. If you can’t find a photo, then explain in your own words what you consider to be the difference between these three. Rationalizing that there “ought to” be a difference is not the same as demonstrating that there is an actual difference.
I’ve known several ethnic Chinese and Taiwanese who’ve lived in Japan and said they were regularly mistaken for Japanese and that others were sometimes shocked to learn they couldn’t speak Japanese fluently. When I lived in Japan I also had a biracial white/Japanese coworker who was fluent or very nearly so in Japanese and still had a hard time convincing people that he really was half Japanese. It seemed that a lot of Japanese people I knew believed they could identify non-Japanese Asians at a glance, but several did say they based this more on hair, clothing, and body language than facial features.
Ah, the familiarity of this rings with the force of a cartoon anvil.
In my own personal experience, being an Asian person who has always been around lots of other Asian people in various contexts (my hometown in America was about 40% Asian, the university I attended in America was 43% Asian, I’ve lived extensively in several east Asian countries during my upbringing, and I am currently living in Tokyo), I’ve gotten people guessing my ethnicity all over the map. Even in Taiwan. I mean, those people are around Taiwanese all the time, shouldn’t they recognize a Taiwanese face when they see one? And in Japan, where they are around Japanese all the time - shouldn’t they recognize a non-Japanese face when they see one?
So this is fun, let’s mix it up a bit. Let’s say I go to Taiwan, which I very often do. I don’t blend in and, rather, set off more than a few radars that I’m not raised there because of my obvious Westernized mannerisms and dress. They’re going to have to go by my facial features alone if they want to play the “let’s guess what Asian she is” game. But despite my misleading cultural markers, my face should make it clear to them that I’m still Taiwanese. Right? Right??! Wrong. Despite my assurance that my parents are from Taiwan, I have had many Taiwanese claiming that I don’t look Taiwanese at all. Yeah ok, but I am. And then I have some who assure me that I do. Ok, so which is it? I only have one face - why all these different opinions?
And here in Japan, I don’t really have much Taiwanese dress/mannerism to give me away that I’m Taiwanese, because my American upbringing trumps all. Yup, clean slate - they’re going to have to go by facial features alone, which is looking more and more like an inexact science. And so after introducing myself to various groups of Japanese people and telling them I’m American, some of them would be like oh yeah, like Japanese-American right? I’d contradict them, and they’d fall out of their seats with surprise because they were so utterly convinced I’m Nihonjin. And they couldn’t figure out that my Japanese-American friends were the ones with Japanese ancestry. Right.
And for some reason, in America, people always want to know exactly which East Asian you are, so I’m quite used to the perpetual guessing going around, involving me, my sister, my mother, my friends, family friends, my classmates, my neighbors, and random strangers. Asian Americans (especially the ones who’ve been in America for several generations) are good to use in these tests, because they have weak identifying cultural markers (in some cases, they are pretty much absent) and force you to go by facial features alone. What I’ve found is that even people who claim that they can discern by facial features alone do not have hard results to back up their supposed adept facial-feature-recognition skills. Oh sure, they’d get quite a few correct, but considering the total number of Asians that they’d involve in their guessing games, their success percentage would actually be quite low and not statistically significant. I’m sure that gets overlooked, though.
There are isolated incidents where you could guess based on facial features alone, because a few people just happen to fit with some sort of notion of a stereotypical look. People can say all they want about how X country was isolated from Y country for all those years until their faces turn blue, but that doesn’t mean that there is something so discernible to us in our own facial features that so obviously set us apart from the others. Nor does it necessarily manifest and play out in real life interactions. I mean jeez, if your own people can’t even tell…
In the real world when you are interacting with all sorts of different Asians in different contexts (and you yourself are one), you realize that it’s not as easy or clear-cut as some people here claim or theorize.
Ishaw, needless to say I agree emphatically with everything in your post, except I’m still at a complete loss as to what the “stereotypical facial features” are supposed to be w/r/t Chinese, Korean, Japanese (and apparently we’ve completely neglected Taiwanese in our discussion, so maybe we’re also neglecting Hainanese, Manchurian, and who knows what else). Is there any consistent account of what the stereotypical features are even supposed to be?
Once again, my objections were to the statements that it made no sense that there would be differences (“absurd” was the word used I believe) and that in general Asians themselves do not claim to be able to do it. I am glad that you have ceded both those points, cosmic. As to the GQ answer, I think we can only conclude that there is only a variety of anecdotal reports in both directions and no way to give a definitive answer other Asians cannot classify other Asians by facial structure alone with 100% reliability. The degree over random choice, if at all, is unanswerable given the data we have.
As to what are the prototypic differences - Here is one site that tries to explain it to those of us who are not familiar enough to differentiate ourselves. What I personally notice is a tendency for Chinese individuals to have flatter nasal bridges than Japanese individuals and Koreans somewhere in between, and something that I can’t quite articulate about the overall shape of the face. I would not claim that I have a good reliability myself, nor would I expect that anyone would be perfect. There is so much variety within a population that it is easy to find examples of someone who doesn’t look the part or to have external cues swamp facial structure cues alone.
Ok, I’m not sure if it’s a good idea to get into this game, but for example, I think this photo shows what I think of as some very typical Korean features, especially the eyes. IMO those eyes would be unusual (but not totally non-existent) for a chinese person.
According to some Japanese people I’ve known, Koreans tend to have rounder faces than the Japanese. I’ve heard the expression “frying pan face” used to describe them, which sounds pretty insulting to me so I apologize if that’s an ethnic slur. But AFAIK that’s the Japanese stereotype about what Koreans look like. I’ve also heard that a fair number of Koreans have naturally brown (rather than black) hair, but so many people dye their hair now that even if true this wouldn’t be much help in distinguishing one ethnicity from another.
Funnily enough, before I read your post I was about to say that it was my impression while living in Japan that the Japanese tend to have flatter nose bridges than the Chinese or Koreans.
FWIW, the first photo in your link struck me as a non-Japanese Asian woman done up like she’s Japanese – her hair, makeup, and what you can see of her top are very obviously in a Japanese style, but something about her face (I think the nose, cheekbones, and chin) doesn’t seem “typically Japanese” to me. I’m not saying this woman isn’t Japanese, but she’s not who I’d have chosen as an example of someone with a [stereo]typical Japanese face. I’ve known a couple hundred Japanese women in my life, and this woman doesn’t remind me of any of them. The Chinese woman pictured actually looks more like a number of Japanese women I’ve known. So while on the one hand I do have an idea in my head of a “typically Japanese face”, I don’t see much reason to trust my or anyone else’s accuracy when it comes to identifying a real Japanese individual based on facial features alone.
I’ve always thought a few members of the Japanese royal family had features that are unmistakenably Japanese, e.g. Emeror Akihito – there’s no way I would ever guess he was Chinese. Crown Princess Masako as well. It’s always seemed to me that many Japanese people tend to have much “beakier” noses than at least the southern Chinese.
Supposedly a woman’s teeth may also be a differentiator: Japanese apparently think it’s cute for a girl to have crooked teeth.
I continue to maintain that it’s completely illogical to believe that since people in adjacent countries can look different from each other that they necessarily must and do look different. There’s no sense repeating a logical argument to someone who rejects it in favor of an *a priori *conclusion and likewise you can continue to ignore the majority of the Asian posters who also say that the perceived differences are unreliable.
Reading the blog’s comment thread should be enough to convince you that this is one person’s opinion and it doesn’t seem to enjoy conclusive agreement among everyone; again, some Asians in that thread and this thread claim that they have a very different of what the stereotypic differences are, if they even exist.
Please point out to me where I even implied that they must and do look different or reached any a priori conclusion.
My only contribution was to call you on the BS that it was “absurd” to even think it was possible, and your claim that as a group Asians themselves do not believe they can. Other than that I have been very clear in my position that I think it is reasonable to believe that they can but that allwe have are various, often conflicting, anecdotes and no real evidence upon which to give any definite answer, other than “at least not with 100% reliability”.
And no surprise that you ask for someone’s sense of what those differences are and your only response is “well there’s people with other thoughts.” :rolleyes:
