From: keis@psy.uwa.oz.au (Keis Ohtsuka)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.japan
Subject: Re: Not a Myth at All
Date: 16 Dec 1992 11:22:22 GMT
Organization: The University of Western Australia
NNTP-Posting-Host: wapsy.psy.uwa.oz.au

underdog@leland.Stanford.EDU (Dwight Joe) writes:

Dwight Joe describes fine points in distinguishing various 
East Asian Cultural group members  and reports amazing accurate
hit rate of 75% in guessing which Asian ethnic group a particular
Asian person belongs :  

I agree that there is diversity in facial/physical features among
Asians but that is not the point I would like to discuss.  What I don't
understand is your fascination, which by the way shared by many
Japanese who falsely believe that somehow they are 'different' from
other Asians, about the differences in physical features that supposedly
distinguish various ethnic groups. Why do you have to pay inordinate
amount of attention to such trivial and unreliable physical features,
big buggy eyes vs. small eyes, hues and shapes of body parts, etc.
trying to acertain the ethnic membership of an individuals. I mean,
unless you have an ultimate objective to single out a particular
ethnic group (to socialize/avoid/paint a David's Star on a doorstep,
etc.), why waste your time perfecting such skills?  However, Joe,
I do pay attention to a degree of interest in this matter since it
happens to be a good predictor regarding whether I can get along
with a person in the future.  The more strongly they believe they
can tell ethnic groups by people's appearnce, the less likely I
would be confortable around them. 

In my opinion, how people look like is strongly influenced by
environmental factors such as fashion, diet, etc. as much as
what parents contributed. All Asians lining up in the US Embassy
in Tokyo appear to me very similar to the Japanese counterparts in
nearby.  Similarly, Asians in the USA look and behave more like
Americans than members of ancestorial ethinic groups. Asian-
Australians dress/sound/behave more like Australians than
Asians.  Dwight Joe is overestimating a predictive power of
genes above and beyond what people should normally accept.
It's in culture not in genes. Being over-exposed to different
cultures, I no longer subscribe a romantic notion that somehow
physical appearance tells something meaningful. It doesn't. I can't
tell where people come from by their appearance and, more  
importantly, I don't care where they come from so long as
we can peacefully co-exist.

>I personally find that Korean-ge ladies and Japanese-ge ladies are much
>prettier than Chinese-ge ladies.  I.e. I find the Korean-ge look and the
>Japanese-ge look to be far more pleasing.

But isn't beauty in the eyes of beholder?  There are lots of Chinese-
looking, Korean-looking, Vietnamese-looking, Cambodian-looking Japanese
and all of them believe they look exactly like Japanese. I believe
you can say the same thing for each ethnic groups (try permutations).
Also I would like to point out that beauty also reflects, to certain
extent, confidence or self-esteem of a person. A person who is happy
about oneself with less than perfect physical features do project
oneself quite gracefully in public. Often people attributes beauty
to such a person. There are lots of esthetically pleasing people in
each ethnic groups. If a rate of genetic accident held constant,
China should have ten times more beautiful people than Japan does.

K. Ohtsuka