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All Asians look the same.


Vivian

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I was extremely ticked off at school today, but I hate confrontation...anyways here's what happened.

 

I live in the country, some people are a bit narrow minded over here, bla bla

 

In class today, one of my classmates said that "All Asians look the same." That's a new comment, isn't it? ugh

Anyways, since I hate confrontation, I didn't say anything. uhgh i wish i did

 

 

here's the crazy part

 

 

MY TEACHER TRIED TO JUSTIFY THIS COMMENT

 

LIKE WTF 

 

She tried to relate it to biology, and it totally ruined all her credibility for me. 

 

My question is, can this actually be related to biology? What should I do if this situation happens again? Helppp

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Do you know how many times you'd hear that every day where I am ? lol

 

When people are not used to seeing asians a lot, they think they all look the same.

 

When I first got into Kpop, I thought everyone looked the same too, I just got used to it and started seeing the differences, otherwise...

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It can actually be related (sort-of) to biology funnily enough.

It's called the Cross-race effect and basically it means that it's easier for a person of one race to differentiate facial features within their own race and not others. Pretty fascinating.

 

As far as I know though, you can train yourself out of it a little bit.

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Yes it can be.

 

If you are not used to seeing a certain "ethnicity" you can't differentiate them. 

 

For instance people who didn't grow up around any asians will not be able to tell any girl group members apart.  There's a study on this somewhere but basically your brain takes time to process different looks and categorize them as "individuals".

 

so for instance if you grow up somewhere with no asians, and then see an asian you won't notice things like nose shape, distinct eye shape but just a general racial pattern because they are so distinct. 

 

If you then move to Japan or something it will take you a while but you will slowly adapt to more pinpoint differentiations between the people you meet.  AKA instead of just "Asian" you will notice the small differences in their faces.

 

It's entirely natural for someone to view an SNSD MV for instance and not be able to tell them apart. Also it applies to other groups as well, for instance Asians who grew up without seeing white people would not be able to tell people apart at first. 

 

It's nice because what is considered "ugly" for people of that same race may be considering much more attractive to people of other races because they don't see the small distinctions as well.  So a 3/10 Asian may appear 7/10 to non-asian people a LOT more, but a 10/10 asian may seem 7/10. 

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My mom and my aunt have said that too. They can't really tell the difference except in obvious cases. 

 

I relate it to how in every Korean variety show they'll tell a black person that they look like Will Smith... 

 

Is it lack of exposure or what? For me, I've never had that problem.

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The only way to ever justify a statement like that is to add a relative clause, such as "to X, because..."

 

In the eyes of whoever says it, it can hold some truth, but if they claim they actually look similar, then they're clearly wrong. And, might I add, really dumb.

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It can actually be related (sort-of) to biology funnily enough.

It's called the Cross-race effect and basically it means that it's easier for a person of one race to differentiate facial features within their own race and not others. Pretty fascinating.

 

As far as I know though, you can train yourself out of it a little bit.

She didn't say anything about this effect. This makes a ton of sense though.

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Anyway, the all asians look alike is true to the observer.  I couldn't tell anyone apart when I first started watching kpop.  I couldn't tell sunny apart from Yoona...

 

It's not racist, it's just a real observation on what they experience being unable to tell them apart because they aren't used to face recognition for that race/ethnicity. 

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross-race_effect

 

http://healthland.time.com/2010/11/24/they-all-look-the-same-how-racism-works-neurologically/

 

It's natural, but it's not just asians.  Any ethnicity you aren't used to seeing a lot will "blend together" neurologically.  Asians are just more homogenous with less ethnicities in their country so they do seem more alike.  But it would apply to any homogenous group like a group of certain ethnic africans or norwegian etc. 

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That's quite annoying, lol.

She might have thought about it in terms of similar eye color, skin tone, hair type, etc. 

 

but the thing is, there are a lot of minute differences between these features that make them completely different genes. Some people have a slightly lighter brown in their irises, some people have different ear lobe attachments, some people have different slopes in their noses... evolution and homogeneous reproduction may make these differences harder to notice compared to the wider spectrum of differences in other ethnicities, but scientifically speaking, Asians are not all exactly the same.

 

 

tl;dr The assertion that "all asians look the same" is a psychological perception, not biological fact.

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She tried to relate it to homozygous genes or something? She wasn't really clear.

Homogenous* and there is some truth to it. You will often hear people in America say they are 1/2 Italian, or 1/4 Jewish or something like that. A lot of people in the Americas have relatives in their family history from different races or different parts of the world. There is much more genetic diversity in certain parts of the world then there is in others. In Asian countries people are much more likely to have genes from only the one racial group in their background, so there is less genetic diversity in general.

 

It is the same in other places like parts of Africa and parts of Europe like Iceland, and other island nations and places that were relatively isolated historically for whatever reason.

 

With that said the main reason people think those from other races are hard to tell apart is because they aren't used to seeing them, like others have already said above.

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Yes it can be.

 

If you are not used to seeing a certain "ethnicity" you can't differentiate them. 

 

For instance people who didn't grow up around any asians will not be able to tell any girl group members apart.  There's a study on this somewhere but basically your brain takes time to process different looks and categorize them as "individuals".

 

so for instance if you grow up somewhere with no asians, and then see an asian you won't notice things like nose shape, distinct eye shape but just a general racial pattern because they are so distinct. 

 

If you then move to Japan or something it will take you a while but you will slowly adapt to more pinpoint differentiations between the people you meet.  AKA instead of just "Asian" you will notice the small differences in their faces.

 

It's entirely natural for someone to view an SNSD MV for instance and not be able to tell them apart. Also it applies to other groups as well, for instance Asians who grew up without seeing white people would not be able to tell people apart at first. 

 

It's nice because what is considered "ugly" for people of that same race may be considering much more attractive to people of other races because they don't see the small distinctions as well.  So a 3/10 Asian may appear 7/10 to non-asian people a LOT more, but a 10/10 asian may seem 7/10. 

 

this is correct, and of course it happens in the reverse. caucasians who work in asian countries look the same to asian people. i've heard of a few different instances where an english teacher was mistaken for someone else by their asian coworker.

 

well, asians are mongoloids so it's pretty obvious they all share similar features. it's all relative though. actually, there's lots of asians (who live in asia) that think all white people look the same.

 

this isn't... no. being "mongoloid" has nothing to do with it, and that's a term that's fallen out of use for a reason. black people, for example, don't "share similar features," despite being black, as they're the most genetically diverse of all the races. that people associate them with certain characteristics is social, not biological.

 

there are asians who have single eyelids and double eyelids, epicanthic folds and no epicanthic folds, small noses and large noses, prominent cheekbones and low cheekbones, etc.

 

 

japanese, indonesian, pakistanish are asians. to say they look the same is crazy.

they dont know how LARGE asia is....

 

seriously. i think the classmate and the teacher in this instance were really ignorant.

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Heck even asians confuse asians with other asians.  :derp:

 

It happens to every race as pointed out previously.  We're influenced by our exposure, environment, etc.  The human brain looks for similarities and patterns.  Look hard enough though and you'll start to see distinctions. 

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this is correct, and of course it happens in the reverse. caucasians who work in asian countries look the same to asian people. i've heard of a few different instances where an english teacher was mistaken for someone else by their asian coworker.

 

 

this isn't... no. being "mongoloid" has nothing to do with it, and that's a term that's fallen out of use for a reason. black people, for example, don't "share similar features," despite being black, as they're the most genetically diverse of all the races. that people associate them with certain characteristics is social, not biological.

 

there are asians who have single eyelids and double eyelids, epicanthic folds and no epicanthic folds, small noses and large noses, prominent cheekbones and low cheekbones, etc.

um, i know sis lmao. but i'm talking about east asians and it's obvious they all share similar features and when i say "similar features" i don't mean the every little thing like cheekbones, noses etc. (i mean, east asian societies are still largely homogenous), which is where the "all asians look the same" stereotype arises in the west.

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