CJK people actually do look very similar anyway, which is not surprising as there are a lot of shared genetics.
The way people tell them apart is going to be mostly based on current popular fashion, which is quite difficult to do with these bust shots and what I'm guessing are older pictures
The problem is I put like 70% as Chinese, because I guarantee there's a Chinese person in the world who looks exactly like the portrait. China is so mixed that it's a total wildcard.
Yeah, none of these were obvious to me. China is an especially massive country and none of these people would look out of place in parts of China (I've seen every one of these facial types in China speaking native Mandarin). Most of the "signal" is gonna be from fashion, and/or the biases of the test-maker in what they choose to represent and how closely those faces match stereotypes.
lots of contact with asian people here, definitely all look different, watch japanese and korean dramas on the regular so should be able to tell at least those. 6/18, funniest thing was to me though thinking "oh you're definitely japanese" and being spot on twice. The biggest shortcoming on this quiz: not telling you the correct answer, or the site giving guidance/examples of their data set.
This website is just the author's personal judgment exercise.
I'm white and got 7/18 and it said "You can't tell the difference" but I think it's because some of them I had no idea. There were a few where I was really sure and I turned out to be right.
I think it's the same with white people. There are some who look unique to their country and I can tell with high confidence but for others, I have no idea; they just look like a generic white person.
For example, I think these public figures look/looked very stereotypical for their country:
German: Otto Von Bismarck
English/Scottish: Hugh Grant, David Bowie, Winston Churchill, Maggie Smith
Twenty five years ago, I lived in San Francisco. This website was "talk of the town" for a quick minute. The real trick is looking at people's hair styles. In my experience, fashion indicates one's ethnicity/nationality much more than face shape alone. Think about a blond Italian from northern Italy, vs a blond German from southern Germany. They will have wildly different fashion styles (clothes and hair). The same for a Londoner and a Parisian.
What’s really wild to me is having spent time in both Mexico and Thailand, I have seen some people in Mexico that could have a twin in Thailand. That was really unexpected.
This is a really interesting comment. Sometimes when I see photos of native people from South America (especially anything Amazonian), they do look a bit South East Asian to me. Do you think those people that you saw in Mexico were mixed (or fully) native (not European by descent)?
My Vietnamese friend and I once went to a Philippine food festival. Most of the Filipino people there tried to talk to my friend in Tagalog. He’d talk back to them in Vietnamese. Granted, he doesn’t look Vietnamese to me, either. He looks like an islander.
I got 12/18 on faces as an American-born Caucasian living in Japan for over 10 years. Since the subjects were photographed in New York City (and from the other comments, at least a decade ago), cues from fashion and makeup only helped me get about 4 of them, another 6 had pretty strong ethnic features. Of the remaining 8, it was a bit of a tossup and I did worse than guessing, getting only 2 correct.
13/18 on food. Even with a lot of the same general types of food, the presentation and specific ingredients made a lot of them somewhat simple. I got tripped up on a few, though, where I overthought it ("a Japanese X is usually not like this") or ones where it was really a tossup for me between Chinese and Korean since I'm less familiar with those foods.
As some other posters have said, it’s the “accessories” that often give you a clue. Clothes, makeup, hairstyle, etc.
Also, Asians in their native countries are more distinctive vs. say, fully “Americanized” Asian Americans who I feel are a separate category that is more homogenous with each other than their country or ethnicity.
Another point I’ve observed more recently is that Korea and some parts of the Sinosphere are converging in aesthetics. Japan still seems to be doing its own thing. Though culturally I’d say Japan and Korea nonetheless share the most similarities.
I got 6/18 for the faces ("Obviously, very bad.") I thought I would get at least 50%. Interestingly, of the ones I felt very sure about, I did much better (got about 4 out of those 6).
Obviously, random chance...
It's a bit ignorant/racist to expect people from different countries to look distinctly different (fashion notwithstanding), when genetics are so overlapping
It's too slow. It takes at least five seconds to load the next picture after you answer. You should probably just preload all the pictures client-side. I wasn't able to get through it.
15/18 on food. Been to and eaten at all three countries. It was mostly instinct TBH. I’m not sure I can point out exactly what characteristics make a particular picture of food Korean/Chinese/Japanese.
That said I really love food. I cook all 3 types often and go out to eat all 3 types (and even regional variants) quite frequently.
I got a bit more than average correct, but they all looked like New Yorkers from the early 2000s to me if I'm honest. Maybe it's because I'm watching Castle right now, or it is indeed because fashion and stylistic choices tell a lot more about when and where someone is from.
The thing is the asians are dressed / made up in a confusing way. Koreans don't on the street don't typically look like that, whereas say a Japanese person might.
It would be a better test if it were from the collarbone-up, no clothes or makeup.
I got 3/18. I'm not sure what to think of that. I live in a city full of Asian people, international students, tourists etc etc. One of my best friends in high school was Korean. One of my closest friends at uni was Japanese. One of my close friends now is Chinese.
The architectural version is interesting to me. There's really a world of difference, but you need to know some history and some of the "cultural vibes" particular to each country to understand.
Very uncultured and untraveled caucasian here. I got 10/18, surprising myself. Probably plenty of luck, but at least 5 or 6 I was quite confident about. Not sure how.
I played this quite a few years ago and felt pretty certain that they deliberately chose photos that were atypical of each ethnicity. That said, there kind of is no typical Chinese look since it's such a huge country. Those in the north are taller and have similarities to Koreans, those in the south will have more similarities to Vietnamese.
Admitting this kind of conflicts with the One China Policy and the implicit Han Supremacist attitude prevalent in CCP politics but China is ethnically diverse compared to Korea and Japan simply due to its geographic scale. There might be a certain Han "look" but I'd expect "Chinese" to be much more difficult to pin down even if you ignore the absurdity of trying to pin down "pure" ethnicities across an entire continent.
Delineating Korean and Japanese "looks" already seems a fool's errand if you consider that archeological evidence demonstrates close cultural and trade relationships (or alternatively: astronomically unlikely astonishing examples of parallel developments) between the two regions dating back at least to the Neolithic period - and that the current "native" population seems to only date back no farther than that period despite archeological evidence of prior populations.
Of course this all also exists in the context of Chinese history which largely hinges on what exactly you want to call "China" historically as for most of its written history there really wasn't a single unified entity.
We tend to project backwards a notion of nationhood that in the West largely only came about in the 19th century. In Europe, as a German, I find my own country to be such an obvious example to this as people from all nooks of the political spectrum will find ways to try and shoehorn the modern federal republic into an unbroken chain of history starting with the "Germanic" tribes valiantly resisting Roman rule.
In my country's specific case, the origin myth is completely nonsensical if you look at the actual historic record. The shared identity of the various tribes settling the region only existed from the outside perspective of Rome which simply referred to all foreign territories as being settled "barbarians" (because that's what the foreign languages sounded like to Romans - to put that in perspective, imagine we unironically called Asians "chingchongs").
The first entity with the word "German" in its name was the Holy Roman Empire but the words "of Germany" were only added centuries later and for the longest time the mythological warrior Hermann who "repelled" the Roman invaders by "uniting the tribes" was seen as a villain because - true to its name - the Holy Roman Empire saw itself as the successor to the Roman Empire. It literally included parts of Italy after all and was preceded by the Carolingian Empire (covering much of the same territory but more of modern France). And of course more recently we've learned that the tribes were actually more divided than unified following the conflict with Rome and that the role of Hermann may have been heavily overstated due to the fact that he was a Roman soldier and thus provided a good basis for a grandiose narrative.
You could point at the Kingdom of Germany as a historical root of German identity but there was no shared cultural identity during that period and certainly no awareness of it among its population. The common folk for most of the middle ages would have most likely only been aware of their local ruler or clergy with a faint awareness of the overarching power structures but migration through trade not withstanding separations were often as strong between neighboring villages as between modern countries.
The closest thing we get to an idea of a "German national identity" is following the conquest by Napoleon and the rise of an aristocratic/mercantile republic monarchy which provided the democratic roots for the modern republic - but even in WW1 "German" culture was heavily defined by Prussia (which covered most of German territory). Historically therefore it seems less like German nationalism was the politicalization of a shared ethnic, cultural and political identity but rather provided a framework to fabricate such an identity in its absence. Even if you ignore the absurdity of claiming a unified "German" cultural identity, the now popular notion of there being such a thing as a "German" ethnic identity flies in the face of there still being distinct native but "non-German" ethnic populations in parts of Germany despite centuries of Germanization and assimilation (notably Danish Germans in the North and Sorbs in the East).
Much like trying to draw the line where you "enter the atmosphere" of the Earth, borders are ultimately arbitrary delineations no matter how you define them and populations will move around, mix and change over time. The abstractions they help us create are likewise arbitrary and have more to do with assertions of power and control than any grander mythology used to justify them.
Why would you think a site trying to compare Chinese, Japanese and Koreans has forgotten about India of all places? They must've also completely forgotten Mongolia, all nations of SE Asia and Russia's Far East exist.
That's great, but I wonder whether SE Asian people are any better at telling e.g. what European country someone is from, or what African country etc. It's a bit shit but we all look the same if you look from far enough away. Like, I'm Greek but I have fair hair, skin and eyes despite most people in the UK expecting me to be "olive skinned" and I have friends who could easily pass for Swedish, or, conversely, Libyan or Pakistani. You just can't tell.
E.g. one of the Mongol invaders from Medieval Total War II had a soundbite that said "You all look the same to me!". I guess we all do.
>this is what happens generally when you fight against anything out of anger. It’s not that you have no justification for fighting; the real problem is that your efforts only make the situation worse, not just for others, but for yourself also.
Problem is that it's hard to recognise that something is worth our moral efforts without feeling angry at the same time. Stoicism is constant work.
hdra|11 days ago
CJK people actually do look very similar anyway, which is not surprising as there are a lot of shared genetics.
The way people tell them apart is going to be mostly based on current popular fashion, which is quite difficult to do with these bust shots and what I'm guessing are older pictures
johnzim|11 days ago
The problem is I put like 70% as Chinese, because I guarantee there's a Chinese person in the world who looks exactly like the portrait. China is so mixed that it's a total wildcard.
jquery|11 days ago
rf15|11 days ago
This website is just the author's personal judgment exercise.
ljsprague|11 days ago
I am pretty sure it's 20+ years old. Just based on when I remember taking it.
jongjong|11 days ago
I think it's the same with white people. There are some who look unique to their country and I can tell with high confidence but for others, I have no idea; they just look like a generic white person.
For example, I think these public figures look/looked very stereotypical for their country:
German: Otto Von Bismarck
English/Scottish: Hugh Grant, David Bowie, Winston Churchill, Maggie Smith
French: Napoleon, Jacque Chirac, Alain Delon, Gerard Depardieu, Francoise Hardy
American: Clint Eastwood, Abraham Lincoln, JFK
Swedish: Agnetha Faltskog
unknown|11 days ago
[deleted]
unknown|11 days ago
[deleted]
postsantum|11 days ago
lol
throwaway2037|11 days ago
michaelteter|11 days ago
What’s really wild to me is having spent time in both Mexico and Thailand, I have seen some people in Mexico that could have a twin in Thailand. That was really unexpected.
throwaway2037|11 days ago
christophilus|11 days ago
soulofmischief|11 days ago
butlike|11 days ago
ericdykstra|11 days ago
13/18 on food. Even with a lot of the same general types of food, the presentation and specific ingredients made a lot of them somewhat simple. I got tripped up on a few, though, where I overthought it ("a Japanese X is usually not like this") or ones where it was really a tossup for me between Chinese and Korean since I'm less familiar with those foods.
decafninja|11 days ago
Also, Asians in their native countries are more distinctive vs. say, fully “Americanized” Asian Americans who I feel are a separate category that is more homogenous with each other than their country or ethnicity.
Another point I’ve observed more recently is that Korea and some parts of the Sinosphere are converging in aesthetics. Japan still seems to be doing its own thing. Though culturally I’d say Japan and Korea nonetheless share the most similarities.
throwawayk7h|11 days ago
aprentic|11 days ago
Some of them look more like non Chinese people than like I he Chinese ethnicities.
A_D_E_P_T|11 days ago
mmmrtl|11 days ago
geor9e|11 days ago
KPGv2|11 days ago
badgersnake|11 days ago
keithluu|11 days ago
butlike|11 days ago
HoldOnAMinute|11 days ago
Domain created 2001-07-18
gnabgib|11 days ago
uolmir|11 days ago
yuhmahp|11 days ago
rf15|11 days ago
system2|11 days ago
Nevermark|11 days ago
jeromechoo|10 days ago
That said I really love food. I cook all 3 types often and go out to eat all 3 types (and even regional variants) quite frequently.
FinnKuhn|11 days ago
unsupp0rted|10 days ago
It would be a better test if it were from the collarbone-up, no clothes or makeup.
stevage|11 days ago
Is it good or bad? I don't know.
zemvpferreira|11 days ago
llflw|11 days ago
LouisSayers|11 days ago
thinking_cactus|11 days ago
WesleyJohnson|11 days ago
beratbozkurt0|11 days ago
mirawelner|11 days ago
fallinghawks|11 days ago
hnbad|11 days ago
Delineating Korean and Japanese "looks" already seems a fool's errand if you consider that archeological evidence demonstrates close cultural and trade relationships (or alternatively: astronomically unlikely astonishing examples of parallel developments) between the two regions dating back at least to the Neolithic period - and that the current "native" population seems to only date back no farther than that period despite archeological evidence of prior populations.
Of course this all also exists in the context of Chinese history which largely hinges on what exactly you want to call "China" historically as for most of its written history there really wasn't a single unified entity.
We tend to project backwards a notion of nationhood that in the West largely only came about in the 19th century. In Europe, as a German, I find my own country to be such an obvious example to this as people from all nooks of the political spectrum will find ways to try and shoehorn the modern federal republic into an unbroken chain of history starting with the "Germanic" tribes valiantly resisting Roman rule.
In my country's specific case, the origin myth is completely nonsensical if you look at the actual historic record. The shared identity of the various tribes settling the region only existed from the outside perspective of Rome which simply referred to all foreign territories as being settled "barbarians" (because that's what the foreign languages sounded like to Romans - to put that in perspective, imagine we unironically called Asians "chingchongs").
The first entity with the word "German" in its name was the Holy Roman Empire but the words "of Germany" were only added centuries later and for the longest time the mythological warrior Hermann who "repelled" the Roman invaders by "uniting the tribes" was seen as a villain because - true to its name - the Holy Roman Empire saw itself as the successor to the Roman Empire. It literally included parts of Italy after all and was preceded by the Carolingian Empire (covering much of the same territory but more of modern France). And of course more recently we've learned that the tribes were actually more divided than unified following the conflict with Rome and that the role of Hermann may have been heavily overstated due to the fact that he was a Roman soldier and thus provided a good basis for a grandiose narrative.
You could point at the Kingdom of Germany as a historical root of German identity but there was no shared cultural identity during that period and certainly no awareness of it among its population. The common folk for most of the middle ages would have most likely only been aware of their local ruler or clergy with a faint awareness of the overarching power structures but migration through trade not withstanding separations were often as strong between neighboring villages as between modern countries.
The closest thing we get to an idea of a "German national identity" is following the conquest by Napoleon and the rise of an aristocratic/mercantile republic monarchy which provided the democratic roots for the modern republic - but even in WW1 "German" culture was heavily defined by Prussia (which covered most of German territory). Historically therefore it seems less like German nationalism was the politicalization of a shared ethnic, cultural and political identity but rather provided a framework to fabricate such an identity in its absence. Even if you ignore the absurdity of claiming a unified "German" cultural identity, the now popular notion of there being such a thing as a "German" ethnic identity flies in the face of there still being distinct native but "non-German" ethnic populations in parts of Germany despite centuries of Germanization and assimilation (notably Danish Germans in the North and Sorbs in the East).
Much like trying to draw the line where you "enter the atmosphere" of the Earth, borders are ultimately arbitrary delineations no matter how you define them and populations will move around, mix and change over time. The abstractions they help us create are likewise arbitrary and have more to do with assertions of power and control than any grander mythology used to justify them.
unknown|11 days ago
[deleted]
butlike|11 days ago
vivzkestrel|11 days ago
rcbdev|11 days ago
KPGv2|11 days ago
davidcollantes|11 days ago
tjwebbnorfolk|11 days ago
glitchc|11 days ago
NooneAtAll3|11 days ago
thenthenthen|10 days ago
marginalia_nu|10 days ago
dt3ft|11 days ago
cs02rm0|11 days ago
YeGoblynQueenne|11 days ago
E.g. one of the Mongol invaders from Medieval Total War II had a soundbite that said "You all look the same to me!". I guess we all do.
oersted|11 days ago
MaikaDiHaika|11 days ago
ppnpm|11 days ago
martini333|10 days ago
int27h-tsr|11 days ago
gsf_emergency_6|11 days ago
https://archive.ph/http://alllooksame.com/
https://archive.ph/CeR00
>this is what happens generally when you fight against anything out of anger. It’s not that you have no justification for fighting; the real problem is that your efforts only make the situation worse, not just for others, but for yourself also.
Problem is that it's hard to recognise that something is worth our moral efforts without feeling angry at the same time. Stoicism is constant work.