CAA: Christian Anime Alliance

Okay here goes: How does one tell the difference between Japanese, Chinese and Korean people? In my mind I can't. I've never seen enough Orientals to really know. Like I don't want to go up to a Korean person and talk Japanese to the guy by mistake. Not to be racial or anything...

come and live in the San Francisco area for a few weeks. That'd help.

I lived about two hours away from nearly all my life... but not anymore.

hmm...
Well there are a lot of asians ("Orientals" is kinda outta date and politically incorrect nowadays ^^; ) that live around here. I just kinda learned how to pick out the differences between Filipino, Chinese, Japanese, etc over time. Not sure how to describe it... there are differences in hair thickness and color and skin pigments I guess. Can't really go by accent since a lot of them have very english accents, but I've heard a lot of Manderin from my Chinese friend so I'm able to tell if they're chinese by that too.

Everything can me politicly incorrect, so I gave up caring. Yeah, I guess being around the people would be the best why to do it. I've only seen a lot of Chinese people. (our landlord is Chinese.) Hmm...

Us asians cannot simply... explain to you this power of ours... it is like a 6th sense to us... however there are times it is hard to figure out who is what. Many Chinese Look Japanese, many Koreans look Chinese, etc... but usually its easy to tell.. listen to the words they say, or their accents

its way easier for us for we are asian, and have acquired this special power during our lives

Mr. SmartyPants wrote:Us asians cannot simply... explain to you this power of ours... it is like a 6th sense to us... however there are times it is hard to figure out who is what. Many Chinese Look Japanese, many Koreans look Chinese, etc... but usually its easy to tell.. listen to the words they say, or their accents

its way easier for us for we are asian, and have acquired this special power during our lives

Or fasians like me who have a thousand asian friends and learn it the hard way >.>

Actually I just ask people lol

I'm not Asian, but I'm slowly starting to pick up on the differences. I haven't honed this skill, but I can probably distinguish between Chinese and Japanese pretty well. I have a hard time recognizing other Asian races, though.

I'm not too sure whether the right word is Oriental since from what I understand, it's on the same degradatory level as the N-word for African Americans. I personally don't care but whenever I speak, I cautiously stick to Asian.

Anyway, to answer your question, there's no shortcut to it, really. I know that I can generally distinguish between two groups:

i) Indonesian/Thai/Vietnamese/Singaporean/Filipino/Malaysian vs
ii) Korean/Chinese(as in mainland China)/Taiwanese/HongKong/Japanese

..based on their 1) physical features and 2) accents

1) I can't really help you with the accents coz you have to be somewhat familiar with their languages. For example, I've observed that Koreans and Japanese always pronounce the 'v' in my name as a 'b.' I suspect that it has to do with their native language. I can identify fellow Singaporeans and Malaysians very easily when they talk Manglish/Singlish <=== (best described as an adapted version of English, that -is- English but typically cannot be understood by my American friends anyway).

2) I generally notice that Group 1 tend to have a darker skin shade and less stereotypical "Asian" characteristics (eg. slit eyes/sharper features) as compared to the Group 2. But with increasing numbers of 'mixed' races, this isn't as useful as it was before.

So yeah, all in all, the best way is just to get to know them. I suppose there are subtle hints I'm subconsciously use but I can't think of any right now. Good luck!

Once I've talked to someone I can usually sorta tell. Maybe it's because I've had a few Asian friends over the years, plus I remember hearing that Canada has a larger Asian population than the US. Looking at my own experiences over the years, I can believe it.

I dunno. Let's see if spiritusvult can shed some light on this one. heh heh heh. He's 1/2 asian now, according to him.

That's easy:

Attractive ones:
Filipinos

Everyone else:
Everyone else

*dodges projectiles*

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Test you ability~! XD

Vietnamese (and people from Indochina in general) are fairly distinctive as they tend to have more prominent cheekbones than do Chinese. There aren't really many Japanese in this area, although being able to grow a full beard is pretty much a give away (at least for the men). Koreans tend to have flatter faces than do the others.

The only way to really know is to become very familiar with large numbers of Asian peoples. Most people are not very good at determining ancestry for other people outside of their own genetic pool, so to speak.

I think a lot of how you would recognize some one has to do with their speech and posture as well as their facial features.

Mave wrote:Manglish/Singlish

Good language lah!

Mr SmartyPants wrote: its way easier for us for we are asian, and have acquired this special power during our lives

Dude, what special power?

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There are three main ways I differentiate between Asian races: appearance, accent and linguistic mannerisms, family name.

[1] Appearance - It's hard for me to explain this. I can just tell ... I don't know why I can. But I don't think this is some kind of "special power".

[2] Accent and linguistic mannerisms.

Filipinos: I find that Filipinos tend to pronounce the 'f', 'ph', and 'v' sound like a 'b'. So when they say 'five', it sounds like 'bive'. Their English also tends sound more "American" in the way they curl their "r"s.

I don't mean to generalise, this is only from my years of living with Filipino neighbours and knowing Filipino work colleagues.

----
Japanese: I listen for the way they break up consonants. For example, when saying a word such as "class", sometimes they say something that sounds like "ku-lass" or "ku-rass". I think this is because Japanese doesn't have consonant-consonant combinations in their alphabet ("tsu" doesn't count because it has a trailing vowel).

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Vietnamese: Usually I talk to them about vietnamese food and listen to how they pronounce it.

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Malaysians / Singaporeans: As Shoorajin and Mave noted above, the "lah" is a giveaway. The other hint is how they either lower or raise the tone of words that native English speakers normally don't lower or raise for those words when used in a sentence.

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Koreans: I can't tell honestly. The only way for me to tell is to cheat and let them speak to me in Korean, which they usually do since I look like a Korean (well at least most Koreans I meet think I do).

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Chinese (from China): The way they pronounce words with "th" sounds like "s", so that "thank you" sounds like "sank you" or "xhank you".

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Chinese (from Taiwan / Hong Kong / Macao): I can't really tell. I'd have to speak to them in Cantonese or Mandarin to tell.

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I can't tell with other Asians...

[3] Family names.

Well if I get the chance to ask, usually family names beginning with "Zh" such as "Zhang", "Zhou" are from China.

Family names of Chinese from Hong Kong or Taiwan use the Cantonese style, such as "Chan", "Cheung", "Tsui".

Korean surnames would be names like "Park", "Kim", "Lee" (though the last two is a bit ambigious).

I can usually tell if a person is Vietnamese by looking at his/her surname, but can't describe how. Sorry.

And I think all you guys know how to tell if a surname is Japanese, since you are all anime and manga fans.

Same way Europeans know how to distinguish between German/British/French/Russian/etc. Eventually you get a general image in your head on how different people look like according to their nationality. Sometimes it mismatches completely, while others (usually) it matches perfectly.

I became too much of an Australian (mate, mate mate? Mate mate mate, mate mate.) to let others figure out which country I come from, which is Korea in this case, since they lose the language key. My accent became Australian! Amazing!

And Mave, I do pronounce your name with v instead of b. My English teachers from highschool would come to kill me if otherwise.

Which reminds me, speech indeed does play a nice role in identification. Koreans tend to use colourful yet flat pronounciation (s/v/b example). Japanese are like Korean, except they're a little less colourful (since they do have limited pronounciation requirement). Chinese are often far from flat pronounciation (very vibrant and active, kinda), and as for other nations I haven't seen too many of them myself to notice a lot of difference.

In the end, it's all about experience.

Shao Feng-Li wrote:Okay here goes: How does one tell the difference between Japanese, Chinese and Korean people?

Well, if the person in question has a video game taped to their forehead, that's a dead give away that they're Korean. And that their name is probably Ryan.

As an aside on 'Oriental'

"Usage Note: Asian is now strongly preferred in place of Oriental for persons native to Asia or descended from an Asian people. The usual objection to Orientalmeaning “easternâ€

Usually I can tell by the language and/or accents. My art teacher was Korean, as were a lot of her clients...I watch Japanese films subbed...I eat regularly at a Thai restaurant...my mom and my aunt speak a Filipino dialect. That's pretty much how I get around.

But as for by sight...eh...I can tell you if they're Filipino or not, but that's it.

Ingemar wrote:That's easy:

Attractive ones:
Filipinos

Everyone else:
Everyone else

*dodges projectiles*

From what I understand Asian can refer to anyone from Asia,but
Oriental refers specifically to those who come from Japan,Tawain,
the Koreas or China.

As to differences:Chinese girls are nice when it comes to sharing their
food with you.
Frankly I don't know any Japanese so didn't have the expierence of
eating with any Japanese girls.
(Personal expierence from Bible School...knew some Chinese there.)

But to get serious for a moment:It's probably like anywhere else.People
intermarry all the time so that it's practically hard to tell them apart.

I can tell /// only cuz 99% of my friends are azn.


Unless they are very mixed... ie cambodian, chinese, japanese all mixed in one.

~NL~

I believe in Singapore they have a lot of what is called Eurasians,people of mixed
European and Asian ancestry.

One other detail: From my experience, it seems that Japanese accents seem to dissolve more completely than other Asian accents. That could be a good tool, IMO.

I don't know...I can only tell the Koreans from the rest...because I've lived around them so long. I think it's the nose. But it's weird; my dad totally doesn't look typical Korean at all and he lived there half his life. It's most about the face. There are some exceptions, ie, my dad.

yea some of my cambodian friends look Mexican[latino/ latina] for those who want to be PC.

~NL~

I know a

Welcome back

I got OneNote and I have no clue how to use it.

I've noticed that Japanese people don't usually have blocky faces, and their eyes are bigger and not as slanted. Chinese people have very narrow eyes. As for Korean people, I don't know as I don't think I've ever met a Korean... But I can usually tell when someone is Japanese, especially if they're at a store and wearing a name tag. You can tell from the name.