Can a Chinese person understand if a Japanese person is Japanese or not without talking to them?

Question

No insult. Please don't call me a racist. I was just curious because when i see people who have the asiatic kind of eyes i have a hard time telling their exact nationality (chinese, korean etc) So, i was just wondering: can a chinese (or other east asiatic) understand if another person with this kind of eyes is Chinese or not without listening to them talk?

Thanks!

Answer 1

NO!

You can have a guess though. There are Chinese looking Japanese and Japanese looking Chinese. Same for Koreans. There will be a good chance you guess wrong.

Answer 2

The answer is no. Can white people determine whether other white people are swedish, english, or irish?

Answer 3

Can you look at another white person and know if they are German, or Irish, or English, or Australian, or American?

That should probably answer your question.... so no

Answer 4

That's an asinine theory.

Answer 5

Basically, they can tell just as well as Caucasians can tell between their nationalities. There are certain facial features that are associated with certain nationalities, and these are what people will use to try to make a guess at what background people are, but no, there is no sure way to tell except to ask them or to hear them speak.

Answer 6

Most of the time, no. Sometimes I see a distinct (nationality) look, I might be able to tell. The best way to tell is by looking at their names. Mostly at their last names.

Answer 7

Not really.

I sometimes get mistaken as either Korean, Chinese, or Taiwanese. (Although I am Japanese)

Whenever I see a cute Asian girl walking down the street, I sometimes get confused whether the girl is Japanese, Korean or Chinese.

It is very difficult to distinguish if a white person is: American, British, Irish, German, Dutch, Swedish etc.) Even sometimes Italians too.

One nice thing about it was, when I was in China, they thought I was either a local Chinese or Korean, so no one bothered me (which was good...)

Answer 8

It's possible...

Answer 9

I would say that it is unlikely a person of any race would be able to identify the distinct nationality of anyone else. There are certain physical attributes stereotypically placed on people, such as that most people of Scandinavian descent are tall. While genetically people naturally adopt these attributes, there are short Danes as well as tall ones. While a person could infer to the nationality of a person, you have to remember that in this day and age thousands of people live in other cultures. Can you tell the nationality of a random hispanic person just by looking at them? Unlikely.

Answer 10

i wouldnt say its the eyes that make an asian chinese or korean or japanese... but u can guess, mostly correctly, by how they look, like style and makeup... and their face too (nothing implied) most chinese ppl have a chinese looking face, and korean/japanese/philipino/thai ppl too

so i would say no... only because u asked if it was based on eye shape

Answer 11

Of course he can.

Answer 12

I think this is a very valid question,  its only asked out of curiosity.

It seems we've become so politically correct in this country, that it's reached the point of stupidity,

The least little  deveation from politacal correctness can get you called racist or even worse.

common sence and logic seems to have dissappeard.

Answer 13

Yes. For the most part, I can tell and so can most of the Asian people I know. We will look at an Asian man/woman and we would be able to guess pretty accurately based on their looks. Chinese people have certain features that is distinguishable between a Japanese or Korean, and vice-versa. I think its just an 'Asian thing' :P

Answer 14

some can and some cant

it depends on your obversation on the people of a particular nationality

for me, i usually can differentiate between chinese and japanese female

i cant tell the exactly appearance differences between them but i always think that there's something unique to each of them

sometimes we can distinguish them from dressing

but i'm not so sure of male

whatever

Answer 15

Its possible if there clued up on what to look out for.

But China is a vast land with diffent groups of people, the odds are they are more likely to confuse them for being a Chinese person from another part of China.