The finer distinctions
Posted by ampontan on Monday, September 24, 2007
MY WIFE THINKS she can spot Koreans, Chinese, and Vietnamese (in particular) at a glance most of the time on television.
A couple of years ago, I had her take the test on the site All Look Same. The objective of the test is to guess the ethnicity of Japanese, Koreans, and Chinese from their photographs. My point total was identical with hers, which temporarily brought the room temperature down a couple of degrees. (I’d been married long enough to have gotten the hang of marital arts judo and realized that I should have missed a couple on purpose. Maybe I’ll learn in my next life.)
Regular visitors here will know that a test such as this can be difficult, but others might not realize it is possible to devise a test that no one would pass–even East Asians. In San Francisco, I knew a young woman whose face could have been used as a model for an ukiyo-e print, but she was Chinese. She told me that even Chinese people meeting her for the first time thought she was Japanese.
Indeed, the reason I recalled this site was a photo in a feature story in today’s local newspaper about a ceramist. I live close to Arita, so features about ceramics in the paper are common. I thought the woman in the photo was Japanese–in fact, she looked like someone I thought I had met–but when I read the caption, it turned out she was Korean.
The All Look Same site has been around for a few years, but they’ve updated it with tests on food, architecture, and urban scenery. When I took the face test, registration was required, but they accepted assumed names. Try out your skills of observation–or your intuition!
And if you have the time, the page written by the site’s owner, Dyske Suematsu, on his philosophy, is worth reading. As an aside, this could fit in the recent post about regional characteristics in Japan:
I once had a Caucasian hairdresser who told me that he worked for a Japanese hair salon in New York for a long time. He looked at my hair and correctly guessed which region of Japan my parents were from.
Postscript: My wife’s clues for identifying Vietnamese are sharply sloping shoulders and a wider, flatter nose. I see her point.
Matt said
The All Look Same site uses the least typical members of their their respective ethnic groups. The people were definitely not chosen at random, but rather in a deliberate attempt to confuse. Generally all around asia you will find some people that look different than the majority of their kinsman.
In real life, I get it right more or less 99% of the time.
bender said
My Japanese friend went to a barber shop owned by an ethnic Korean woman and she insisted that he was Taiwanese, ot at least part Taiwanese. A month later, he went to a barber shop owned by a Vietamese woman and now she asks whether he is Korean. Well, I guess that makes him Japanese.
Ken said
Majority of Japanese are said to have come from central Asia via Siberia through Sakhalin.
The rest would be from east and south Asia.
THe mix ratio of Y-chromosome is seen in the graph of following site.
http://www.geocities.com/littlednaproject/W-MAP.GIF
A Korean prfessor composed average faces of Japanese, Korean and Siamese in his treatise.
There are captions in Korean which I cannot read under each compounded photograph but I can guess which is which.
Paul said
When I took that test a long time ago, I thought a couple of them looked like white people.
Aki said
Although my appearance is within the range of typical Japanese, I am often mistaken as Spanish when I am traveling abroad. The funny thing is that it was also the case when I was in Spain. When I visited a museum in Seville, a staff of the museum spoke something to me in Spanish. Then, noticing that I do not understand Spanish, she stared me puzzled and asked me “Catalan?”
Some Japanese have either of these characters. I guess these traits have been transmitted from Southeast Asian immigrants in the prehistoric period. I remember that, more than 10 years ago, Osaka City Museum had been exhibiting an interesting artifact, a lauan canoe excavated from the layer of Yayoi period in Osaka. Since lauan is a tropical tree that does not grow in the Japanese Archipelago, that lauan canoe indicates that Southeast Asians arrived at Osaka during Yayoi period. Interestingly, the explanation attached to the canoe had a description that five lauan canoes (or so; I do not remember the exact number) were excavated in close proximity to each other, suggesting that they arrived at Osaka as a group.
Rick said
First, on close inpection, the Japanese appear to be a hybrid race with many phenotypes (a fancy word for visible or physical traits): short, tall, light skin, dark skin, long head, round head, curly hair, straight hair, more body hair, less body hair, double eyelids, single eyelids, etc… Genetically, the approx. distribution of Y (male) chromosomal lineages are C 9%, D 35%, O2b 32%, O3 20%, and 4% other. Haplotypes C and D are associated with the earlier Jomon inhabitants of Japan, and the two O haplotypes with the later Yayoi immigrants from the continent via the Korean peninsula and possibly the Liaoning and Shandong peninsulas in NE China. Distibution-wise, Y is more common in northeastern Japan (Tohoku and Hokkaido), southern Kyushu, and the Ryukyuan islands (i.e. less Yayoi admixture), whereas O is more common in northern Kyushu and southwest and central Honshu (i.e. more Yayoi admixture).
For myself, Japanese and Koreans are the hardest to differentiate given the significant contribution of Yayoi genes in gene pool. In general, I look for more facial topography (more nose bridge), thick eyebrows (men and women), and in males a tendency for more hirsuteness and thicker beards, as compared to NE and SE continental Asians. There are certain Japanese phenotypes that are easy to identify. For example, former prime minister Nakasone Yasuhiro, with his thick eyebrows, heavy beard, and long head, would most likely not be mistaken for a SE Asian, a Chinese, or even a Korean.
Rick
Ken said
Bill,
Have you seen following site and what do you think of it?
http://image.blog.livedoor.jp/kingcurtis/imgs/9/b/9b221533.gif
ampontan said
I’m not very impressed. (So what if people actually said those things. People say a lot of things.)
Do you really think most girlfriends have five boyfriends for those specific reasons?
I probably know more Americans who don’t match that physical stereotype than do. Particularly the nose.
Bender said
The racial comparisons I often see (which often are racist, too) compare handsome/beautiful faces of one race (usually the author’s race) and not-so-handsome/beautiful faces of another. Quite disingenuous.
Ken said
“Do you really think most girlfriends have five boyfriends for those specific reasons?”
No. Not at all. Most of women substantialy cannot have romantic relationship with plural men simultaneously.
“I probably know more Americans who don’t match that physical stereotype than do.”
So do I. Besides I do not think there is such big difference between Chinese and Koreans as in the picture.
I suppose it is an American man who draw the picture.