The title is shit and confusing, so let me explain.
I’m a white latin american who lives in a latin american country, so in my environment there is very few asian people, in fact, in my region there is so few asians that if there is one in a friend group, they will automatically be “El chino” or “La china”.
Anyway, I understand there is a phenomenon that when ur not used to hang out with people from other races, you might see people from other specific race as “they look the same”. This is part of the reason why so many people in this part of the world thinks that “asians look the same” when that is absolutely not true. It might also happen that some asians also think all white people look the same. And yeah, in a limited genetic pool, many people will look similar.
Anyway, I like asian media and I consume Jpop, Kpop, and I’m starting to try and get into watching more dramas. The thing is when I face the “they look similar” barrier so I have a hard time differentiating people.
I can identify well for example the Black Pink girls, GIDLE girls, Mamamoo, half of the BTS members, etc, just to give you an idea, but sometimes I’m stuck playing a game of “Oh, this is X? No, I think that’s actually Y, nah, I’m wrong, really is Z”.
Is kinda stressful sometimes, not being able to differentiate people in dramas or groups and trying to hang on certain identifiable features to do not get me lost.
Is there a way to kinda “train” myself into identifying Asian people and differentiating them better?
I hope this post doesn’t sound racist, is not my intention at all. I’m just looking for some advice. Thanks.
its impossible asians just look the same
(not true im exaggerating but i definitely feel like there is a lot more genetic homogeneity and they just have more similar features)
Username checks out.
East Asia is one of the most genetically diverse regions in the world, and the three major ethnic groups of East Asia, Han Chinese, Japanese and Korean, have distinct genetic makeup and ancestry. They also have different facial features, such as eye shape, nose shape, skin tone, and hair texture, that reflect their genetic variation and environmental adaptation.
According to a recent study based on whole-genome sequence data, Han Chinese, Japanese and Korean populations have diverged from each other about 3000 to 3600 years ago, and have experienced substantial admixture with surrounding populations since then. Another study based on population genomics revealed that East Asian populations have different ancestral origins, population relationships, genetic differentiation, and admixture patterns.
https://hereditasjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s41065-018-0057-5
I don’t mean to say all asian people look the same, my statement was overly simple. I can usually tell people of different ethnicities from eachother but it seems chinese people look more similar to other chinese people, japanese people look very similar to eachother, so on. Not suggesting that the entire continent looks the same, and of course there is genetic diversity, but my observation has been that diversity shows less visually among their more homogenous groups/regions