That Awkward “I’m Not Korean” Moment

I've noticed that as I navigate Korea, my default is to assume that if I see a Northeast Asian person, I should use some Korean, so I'll usually say annyeonghaseyo. What has been quite humbling is being corrected by people from China and told, "I'm not Korean." This has happened twice, and I think for Chinese people they do get a bit offended when Westerners can’t automatically distinguish them as Chinese.

A study by Wang et al., Do They All Look the Same? Deciphering Chinese, Japanese and Koreans by Fine-Grained Deep Learning (University of Rochester, 2016), provides some insight. The researchers found subtle differences in facial and cultural markers across the three groups:

  1. Bangs are most popular among Japanese and least popular among Chinese.

  2. Japanese smile the most and Chinese the least.

  3. Japanese have the most eyebags, followed by Koreans.

  4. Chinese are most likely to have bushy eyebrows.

  5. Koreans are most likely to have black hair, and Japanese are the least likely.

These subtle cues exist, but they are not obvious to humans, which explains why mistakes like mine in Korea happen so easily. Needless to say, even a basic awareness of cultural and social differences between these countries is important and it helps avoid awkward moments and shows respect for people’s identities.

At the same time, I’m not exactly sure how to feel about this study. While it’s interesting, its limitations are worth noting: the populations of each of these countries are enormous and incredibly diverse, so boiling them down to a few facial attributes could unintentionally reinforce stereotypes rather than provide meaningful insight.

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