What is the difference between the Chinese and the Japanese: learning external differences. How to distinguish Koreans from Chinese and Japanese

13.08.2019

How to distinguish Koreans from Chinese and Japanese

Often saying: "Asians", we immediately mean 3 groups of the population: Chinese, Japanese and Koreans. We unite them without thinking at all, according to several criteria at once: the territory of residence, culture, appearance, lifestyle, and so on. Although many will now be indignant that this cannot be done, because each people is unique, and it is more or less easy to distinguish them outwardly. I won't argue with you

Developing together, these peoples created their own culture (not without the influence of their neighbors), separated, fought for territories, established borders, but for the rest of the world they remained similar to each other as Asians.

And now, recent Chinese studies again prove that the differences between the three peoples are not only in geographical location. Today I propose to consider the differences between the Chinese, Japanese and Koreans. So, let's begin:

Marriage age

Chinese women marry earlier than their neighbors from Japan and Korea, namely at 24-25 years old, but the latter are not in a hurry and marry no earlier than 29-30 years old.

Height

Having surpassed the Chinese and Japanese by about 4-5 cm, the Koreans in their height on average reach the following heights: women - 162, men - 174.

How to distinguish a Japanese from a Chinese or Korean The faces of the Japanese are elongated oval, the nose is more pronounced, the eyes are large with a wide slit. The head of the Japanese is large. Japanese women often use a pale white face color in makeup, and also use active whitening products. Japanese women are the whitest among Asians.

How to tell a Chinese from a Japanese

Chinese faces are rounder than Japanese and Korean faces. China is a huge multiethnic country, unlike Korea and Japan (which are more ethnically homogeneous), which makes it much more difficult to differentiate and generalize on the surface.

The difference between Koreans and other Asians

Korean faces tend to be flat, with high, square cheekbones. The eyelids of Koreans are more often single than double (European style), but recently a high percentage of the Korean population has operated eyelids which can be misleading as to their nationality.

In addition to the external differences in the faces of Asians, there are also indirect signs.

The Japanese most often wear clothes of world brands and are distinguished by good taste. The Chinese do not always match the tone and beautiful combination of clothing elements, they have their own style, different from the Japanese one.
For example, you can easily meet a Chinese woman in the evening on the street in pajamas, Japanese women never do this. Chinese men allow themselves to walk around in cheap sportswear. The Japanese, if they use a sporty style, wear only world-famous, expensive things.

The Koreans are somewhere in the middle in terms of clothing style: ahead of the Chinese, but not yet caught up with the Japanese.

If you cannot distinguish the language at all, then you can determine the nationality by the manner of communication. The Chinese speak loudly, often spit on the ground, even in public places. The language of the Japanese without accents and raising tones, monotonously polite, they speak in a muffled voice, so in Japan, even in public places, it is always very quiet

Each of us got into a difficult situation at the sight of an Asian, especially in a big city.
Many have asked themselves, “Who is this? Chinese? Japanese? Or maybe Korean?
And after all, it would be impolite to come up and ask, or look closely for a long time to find at least some clue.
And what is the difference between them?
Many often do not know that Chinese, Korean and Japanese are not the same.

We all often heard from our adult generation, or people not versed in Asian culture, "They all look the same."
But they are very different from each other, and not only cultural features, namely appearance.
We will look at several similarities and differences between the three nationalities.

Similarities: 1. Skin

The statement that the Chinese, Japanese and Koreans have different skin colors is erroneous.

Their skin color and texture is similar, it’s just that in South Korea, for example, pale (European) skin is in fashion, and therefore guys and girls empty the shelves of cosmetic stores, buying whitening products and sunblock creams, while in Japan there are some subcultures ( gyaru, kogyaru, yamamba), on the contrary, spend a lot of time in the solarium, and in general, white skin is held in high esteem. But if you look at ordinary middle-aged employees, you will notice that they have the same skin color.

2. Body structure

Many people think that all Asians are small and thin, and that they also curl up in old age. This is again not the case, Asians, like all people, can be overweight, tall, athletic, slim or short. It's just that the percentage of very obese people in Asia is much less than in America or Russia (due to the popularity of fast food and fatty foods in the latter, while Asian food is less high-calorie). In terms of height, Koreans can be called the tallest of the three, because the menu of Korean cuisine has always been nutritious meat, while in China and Japan they ate mainly fish, seafood and rice. And due to the fact that in the last 50 years, the Japanese and Chinese have begun to constantly eat meat and their average height has increased by almost 10-15 cm.

Differences: 1. Face

The Chinese have round, flat faces, with flattened noses and large eyes (compared to Koreans). The eyelids are mostly single. The mouth is also small, but the lower lip is plump.

As for the Japanese, the faces are long, the eyes are almond-shaped and the corners are down, the noses are high and flattened, the mouths are wide and the lips are thin.

These descriptions can be attributed to purebred representatives of a particular nation, because due to mixing, the characteristic features of the face change, even if the father is Japanese and the mother is Korean, then the child will be something in between. Mestizos, on the other hand, often successfully mix European and Asian features in their appearance.

Behavior

Also, all three differ from each other not only in appearance, but also in manners. In Japan and Korea, the culture of bowing is highly developed. In Japan, it is obligatory to bow when meeting or meeting, both in formal settings and on the street. Friends, on the other hand, are already freer in behavior, either waving their hands when they meet, or nod, as if greeting. Koreans behave the same in formal settings, but in informal settings they are more likely to simply nod to a new person as a sign of respect. With foreigners can get acquainted in our manner: handshakes or hugs. The Chinese, on the other hand, are more open and shaking hands, even at business meetings, is a common thing.

Also, when communicating in public places, Koreans and Japanese try to speak quietly so as not to disturb others: they do not talk on the phone in transport and do not listen to loud music in headphones for the same reason. In China, this is not the case, so Chinese tourists are quite noisy.

Cloth

The Japanese, Koreans and Chinese have a number of distinctive features in their clothing style. For example, the Japanese are endowed with a brilliant taste. They often wear clothes from famous world designers. The Chinese are not always dressed to the nines. They have their own style, which allows them to be unique among these three peoples.

Quite often, a Chinese woman is able to put on night pajamas in the evening and go outside in it. No Japanese woman would dare to show herself in such an unsightly light.

Chinese men are comfortable walking around in cheap tracksuits, which distinguishes them from the Japanese, who prefer expensive suits.

If the Japanese wear sportswear, then usually these are things from expensive boutiques.

Koreans in their style adhere to the golden mean. They are taller than the Chinese, but so far they have not been able to catch up with the Japanese.

Language differences

There are many dialect forms in Chinese. But even despite this feature, their language is considered tonal. At the end of Korean phrases, sound notes of politeness are noticeable. There are no tones and stresses in Japanese. Their language is considered monotonous. Usually the Japanese talk to each other in a slightly hushed tone.

Original taken from

1 399 look.

It is very difficult to distinguish a Korean from a Chinese or Japanese without special training. But this is only at first glance they are "on the same face." The art of distinguishing the inhabitants of Southeast and East Asia from each other becomes very simple if you know a few simple rules.

Phenotype difference

Let's say right away: without practice, it is not easy to distinguish between Koreans, Chinese and Japanese. Even they themselves cannot always do it with 100% accuracy.

The Chinese nation is multi-ethnic, 56 different nationalities live there, and some of them are not at all like the Chinese in our view. For example, Uighurs are more like Tajiks. Therefore, it is simply impossible to derive some average type of Chinese phenotype.

Also, the problem of distinction is complicated by the fact that the same Japanese islands experienced more than one wave of migration of both the Chinese and Koreans, therefore, in the course of history, the phenotypes again underwent changes.

However, some signs can still be identified.

So, for example, it is believed that the faces of the Japanese are elongated and oval, the nose is more pronounced, the eyes are large with a wide slit. It is also believed that the Japanese have larger heads.

Japanese women often use a pale white face color in makeup and use active whitening products. It is believed that the Japanese and Japanese women are the whitest among Asians. Chinese women use cosmetics less than Japanese women.

Among these three peoples, the Chinese have the darkest skin, so they do not like to sunbathe so that the skin is lighter.

The faces of the Chinese are rounder than the Japanese and Koreans, while the Chinese usually have the widest cheekbones. Korean faces tend to be flat, with high, square cheekbones. Koreans also tend to have thinner noses.

There is also a figurative way of differentiating the Chinese and the Japanese. So, they say about the Chinese that they look like kittens, while the Japanese are like fish, that is, their eyes are a little protruding.

And it is also believed that Koreans can be distinguished by small palms.

Behavior

Chinese, Japanese and Koreans can also be distinguished by their behavior. The most impulsive and loud among these Asian peoples are the Chinese. They usually talk in an unusual way for our ears, they can spit on the ground, not embarrassed by the fact that they are in a public place. The Japanese, on the contrary, are extremely reserved and delicate, so in Japan, even in public places, it is always very quiet.

Plastic

Finally, one of the distinguishing features of Korean women and men is often "made", puppet faces. Plastic surgery in Korea is one of the main trends.

According to statistics, South Korea ranks first in the world in plastic surgery for both the female and male population. So if in front of you is the face of a reference Asian beauty, a little unnaturally exaggerated, then most likely it is a Korean or a Korean.

Fashion style

The cardinal differences between the Chinese, Koreans and Japanese can be traced "by clothes". The Japanese most often wear clothes of world brands and are distinguished by good taste. The Chinese do not always match the tone and beautiful combination of clothing elements, they have their own style, different from the Japanese one.

For example, you can easily meet a Chinese woman in the evening on the street in pajamas, Japanese women never do this. Chinese men allow themselves to walk around in cheap sportswear.

The Japanese, if they use a sporty style, wear only expensive things known all over the world. The Koreans are somewhere in the middle in terms of clothing style: ahead of the Chinese, but not yet caught up with the Japanese.

Language

Another way to distinguish between these three peoples is by language. The Chinese, regardless of dialect, have a tonal language, and Koreans like to put characteristic sound markers of politeness at the end of phrases, which, with proper experience, can be distinguished. However, even here one can be mistaken: it is believed that the Shanghai dialect of Chinese resembles Japanese. The language of the Japanese is without accents and raising tones, monotonously polite, they speak in a muffled voice.

To apply the knowledge gained in practice and distinguish the Chinese from the Koreans and the Japanese, watch video clips with the most popular hits in these countries today.

Japan: Torisetsu (Nightcore) - Kana Nishino

Each of us got into a difficult situation at the sight of an Asian, especially in a big city. Many have asked themselves, “Who is this? Chinese? Japanese? Or maybe Korean? And after all, it would be impolite to come up and ask, or look closely for a long time to find at least some clue. And what is the difference between them? Many often do not know that Chinese, Korean and Japanese are not the same. In this article we will try to lift the veil of secrecy.

We all often heard from our adult generation, or people not versed in Asian culture, "They all look the same." But they are very different from each other and not only cultural features, namely appearance. We will look at several similarities and differences between the three nationalities.

Similarities: 1. Skin

The statement that the Chinese, Japanese and Koreans have different skin colors is erroneous.

2. Body structure

Differences: 1. Face

Here the most difficult begins, because there are differences in the structure of faces, but due to the development of plastic surgery, it is often difficult to make out where someone is. Koreans have wide and slightly square faces, pronounced cheekbones, narrow eyes with raised corners and a single eyelid, sometimes born with a double eyelid, but most often a crease above the eye is the result of surgery. The nose and mouth are mostly small. The Chinese have round, flat faces, with flattened noses and large eyes (compared to Koreans). The eyelids are mostly single. The mouth is also small, but the lower lip is plump. As for the Japanese, the faces are long, the eyes are almond-shaped and the corners are down, the noses are high and flattened, the mouths are wide and the lips are thin. These descriptions can be attributed to purebred representatives of a particular nation, because due to mixing, the characteristic features of the face change, even if the father is Japanese and the mother is Korean, then the child will be something in between. Mestizos, on the other hand, often successfully mix European and Asian features in their appearance.

From left to right: Koreans, Chinese, Japanese

2. Hairstyle

Fashion for hairstyles in such close countries varies greatly. The Chinese pay tribute to European fashion, and shaven temples and combed sideways or back hair are popular among men. Sometimes, instead of combing, they make small ponytails or buns at the back. Or medium length hair (for men), combed back.

Chinese Japanese

Korean guys prefer bowl-like hairstyles, with bangs in front of their eyes, or combed to the side. The Koreans prefer haircuts, while the Japanese adore hairstyles, with an abundance of wax (which can be bought in any combination) and strands sticking out in different directions.

Korean

Each strand on the head of a Japanese young guy is neatly arranged, and does not sway in the wind. If you see an Asian with a hairstyle like a Final Fantasy character, you know: in front of you is a Japanese (s). Approximately the same hairstyles are loved by Japanese idols and visual performers. With women, it is more difficult, because European fashion has greatly influenced the hairstyles of Asian girls. Chinese girls love natural, straight and long hair. Of course, you can meet curly girls, and dyed, and short-haired, but most often Chinese women prefer simplicity.

Chinese Japanese

Korean women like to dye their hair brown or dark blond, give their hair more volume and curl the ends a little. Also recently, bob and bob haircuts, ashy color and slightly careless tufts of hair at the back of the head have come into fashion.

Korean

Japanese women are the most diverse in hairstyles: here you have blond hair, and bunches, and ponytails or pigtails, and a very short bob. And on Harajuku, you can meet Japanese women with hair of all colors of the rainbow.

3. Clothes

Everyone loves to dress up fashionably, and the street fashion of South Korea, Japan and China is very rich. But you can still see some differences. The Chinese love the simplicity of style and light officialdom (jackets, shirts, almost classic trousers).

Chinese
Korean

The Japanese try to be either cute (girls wear white/pink dresses with stockings, loose warm-colored clothes and low heels or completely flat soles, while guys wear sweaters and turtlenecks and straight trousers), or vice versa brutal (girls wear men's clothes, and guys wear bloomers with large sneakers and long T-shirts).

Japanese

Well, street fashion Harajuku is a completely separate topic, you can meet anyone there, from a fan of visual kei in leather pants with boots on an unreal platform to a cute lolita princess. Koreans, on the other hand, prefer sexuality and audacity. Girls try to wear heels, short skirts / shorts, translucent things. Guys, on the other hand, like either black-and-white-gray things, slacks, shirts or t-shirts and caps, or long sweaters / sweaters and a more informal style. Koreans also love shapeless long coats and hats.Also, in any of these countries, you can meet girls and boys in national costumes on holidays like Coming of Age Day, Lunar New Year, Chuseok, etc.

4. Makeup

This feature can only be attributed to girls, but Asian women are also painted in different ways.

Chinese Japanese

The main goal of all Asian women when applying makeup is to enlarge the eyes. Chinese women love lush eyelashes and black pencil, sometimes shades of delicate colors, and slightly thick straight eyebrows. Naturally, Chinese women, like Koreans and Japanese women, take care of their skin, trying to make it paler. They try not to use bright lipsticks.

Korean

Korean women prefer discreet makeup, tinted eyelashes, white pencil and shades of brown tones. Lips like to be painted with transparent or pink glosses, and eyebrows are painted with a house. Japanese women are the most original: they enlarge their eyes with thick (sometimes false) eyelashes from above and below, draw lines under their eyes first with a white pencil, and then even lower with black, use eyelid glue, wear magnifying lenses, and some Harajuku models sculpt their eyelashes higher or below the lash line, which also makes the eyes look bigger. Japanese women also love blush and delicate glosses to create a kawaii look.

5. Behavior

Asians can be distinguished from each other not only in appearance, but also in manners. In Japan and Korea, the culture of bowing is highly developed. In Japan, it is obligatory to bow when meeting or meeting, both in formal settings and on the street. Friends, on the other hand, are already freer in behavior, either waving their hands when they meet, or nod, as if greeting. Koreans behave the same in formal settings, but in informal settings they are more likely to simply nod to a new person as a sign of respect. With foreigners can get acquainted in our manner: handshakes or hugs. The Chinese, on the other hand, are more open and shaking hands, even at business meetings, is a common thing.

6. Language

Well, the last and most striking feature is, of course, languages. First, let me tell you a little about writing. In China, only hieroglyphs are used, there are no alphabets and alphabets.

Chinese letter Korean letter

In Japan, as you know, there are hieroglyphs (kanji) and a syllabary with two types of writing (hiragana and katakana). In Korea, they use the alphabet (Hangul) and, in some cases, hieroglyphs (Hanja).

Japanese letter

But let's not focus on writing, because oral speech and its sound are important to us, because you can also distinguish representatives of different nationalities from it. The Chinese language has four tones, and the meaning of the word depends on the choice of tone, so Chinese speech sounds very emotional and abrupt. Japanese speech, in turn, sounds measured and calm due to the lack of a strong semantic stress in words, and the syllabic composition of words makes the language softer. The Korean language sounds harsh due to the abundance of the letters "kh", "chh", "tx" with a strong "x". When Koreans talk, it sometimes seems to each other as if a fight is about to break out.

In this article, I tried to touch on the most striking differences, and I hope this will help you not to get into trouble. This situation happened to my sensei when he was walking on Red Square and a guy came up to him and said: Konnichiwa (Japanese), Ni Hao (Chinese), Annyonghaseyo (Korean), because he didn’t know who was in front of him, and decided get out like this.

If you have something to add, write your options in the comments.

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When planning a trip to Asia, you can’t just dismiss this question, they say, they all look the same. Firstly, for some reason they are offended if they are confused, and secondly, there are still differences, and now we will try to figure out what they are.

Residents of Western countries, to which we reckon ourselves, are accustomed to consider all "narrow-eyed" Chinese by default. Probably because there are more of them, and not only in China, but in almost all countries. Sometimes this leads to incidents, and even scandals, as happened, for example, with the film "Memoirs of a Geisha", where Chinese actresses were invited to play the roles of Japanese women.

We will not deny, at first glance, the differences between the Chinese, Japanese and Koreans are insignificant. However, delving into their culture, you will be surprised that even within one country (especially in the case of China) there are many regions whose inhabitants differ in appearance from others.

The Japanese are generally shorter than other Asians. Their skin is lighter, the shape of the face is more elongated, the size of the mouth is smaller, and the noses, on the contrary, are larger. The eyes are slightly protruding, and the distance between them and the eyebrows is minimal. A Japanese with a mustache is very rare, they simply do not grow with them.

The Chinese are taller than the Japanese and have the darkest skin tone. The faces are almost round, with pronounced cheekbones. More arched eyebrows give their eyes an almond shape.

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Koreans are distinguished by coarser facial features, with almost square cheekbones and the narrowest eyes. Against this background, their small and thin noses clearly stand out. They also have small hands. The catch is that right now South Korea is going through a “plastic boom” and a lot of women are making baby doll faces for themselves, which makes them look more like Japanese women.

Psychological features

The Chinese can be distinguished by the noise they make. They speak loudly and laugh even louder. No wonder Mandarin is considered the most "voiced" of all Asian languages.
The Japanese are a more "quiet" nation. These are modest quiet people, not prone to violent manifestations of feelings. When they eat, you never know if they like the dish served. A feature of Korean pronunciation is the rise in tone at the end of a phrase, which makes it possible to distinguish them even without knowing the language.

External signs

Fashion and make-up is another factor that helps distinguish a Chinese from a Japanese and a Korean. Residents of the Land of the Rising Sun are the most conservative in terms of clothing. They prefer a restrained style, take care of themselves. Japanese women even use make-up at home, often whiten their skin and love false eyelashes.

The Chinese dress more in the western style. It doesn't always work out well, but they don't really care. Women here almost never use cosmetics, and men prefer locally produced tracksuits.

Korean women do not abuse makeup, preferring natural looks. Koreans love practical clothes, jeans and sneakers - almost like a local uniform.

This is how things work in theory. But in practice, you can learn to accurately distinguish a Chinese from a Japanese or Korean only by traveling through these countries.