Where can I find descriptions of ethnic characteristics? As in physical traits?

Question

When someone is described as having a "classic nordic" look, I don't know what that means. Are there differences between typical Japanese and Chinese and Korean appearances? It seems like people from different parts of Africa can have different appearances.

Where can you find out about these things?

Answer 1

You won't find much biological literature in Anthropology.  Franz Boas performed a study in the early 20th Century that studied biological (phenotypic) variations among "races".  He found that phenotypic variations were more widely varied AMONG "races" than BETWEEN them -- pointing out that with so much variation, there is nothing that can necessarily "biologically mark" a "race".  These are social constructs that we form -- ascribing traits to others while simultaneously self-ascribing to a group, culture, society and/or identity.

You would have to ask that person what they consider "Classic Nordic" or acknowledge your inherent biases in categorizing groups.

For more articles, I suggest doing a search on "Ethnic Identity" in a scholarly journal database such as JSTOR or your local library!

Answer 2

Classic Nordic means the Pale pink skin, blue, green, grey eyes, with blonde, red, or chestnut hair-you know the typical white person. Other Nordics are East Indians some middle easterns even though they look more like black people that any other race. And southern Europeans should choose other on the race thing especially Italians most of them couldnt pass for white,

Answer 3

Answerer one is completely right except for the notion that you won't find much biology in anthropology. There is, as a matter of fact, an entire branch of anthropology known as biological or physical anthropology, which studies human variation. Nevertheless, most anthropologists - cultural anthros as well as biological anthros - will tell you that it's very difficult if not impossible to come up with a list of physical characteristics that define any certain racial group.

Racial groups are socially defined - which is to say that people's ideas of race vary from place to place and from culture to culture as well as through time. For instance, what gets called "Hispanic" in the United States is a racial group that is defined by a shared language (rather than physical features). Yet if you go to any Spanish speaking country in the Americas, you'll find that the people there have their own notions of what races they are, and will use categories to define themselves and others that are totally alien to race-thinking in the U.S.

The first big point to keep in mind is that variation among racial groups is liable to be more intense than variation between racial groups. Okay, so a "black" person and "white" person happen to differ in a few very noticeable physical features. But if there were a real enumeration of the differing features between, say, a Masai person and a American black person, you'd probably find that these two - both ostensively black - individuals were indeed *more* different from one another than from the white guy.

None of this is to say that race is not real. It is very real, and anyone who tells you that race is not real is living in a fantasy. Race is real insofar as it has real, material effects on a person's life, and only people who are members of privileged groups have the luxury of ignoring the differences between people and the value judgements that tied to them.

Anyway, to answer your question without the lecture on race: You will not be able to find any definitive list of racial features, anywhere. If you do, rest assured that it is incorrect and probably fueled by someone's racist ideology, even if it appears scientific. Yes, Japanese, Chinese, and Korean people will claim that there are different features - and, indeed during WWII, the U.S. gov't issued diagrams that were meant to help white Americans tell the difference between a Japanese person and a Chinese person. But these differences do not hold out under scientific scrutiny.

While answerer 2 is correct insofar as the "classic Nordic" look is blonde, pale, blue eyed, tall, etc., don't take it too seriously - I'm tall, blonde, pale, blue-eyed, but I'm pretty much a mutt, with no Nordic in me at all (not to my knowledge!).