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Is there a way to have less "racial blindness" when consuming asian media?

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.

Skcyte ,

How about Japanese media? Me as an SEAsian find it Japan has a more varied type of face in all the big 3. Of course there’s Ikemen (Handsome) & Bijin (Beautiful) type but when I watched JDrama I found them varied a lot.

scarabic ,

Yes you just have to see more Asian people.

When you’ve only seen one in your life, you can differentiate them from everyone else using some broad attributes. You don’t have to pay very close attention to the nuances of their facial structure.

It’s only when you know a lot of people who all have those broad attributes that you have to start noticing other things.

This isn’t racist, it’s just the brain doing what it does best: not work harder than it has to.

It sounds like you’re already doing the work of looking twice, looking closely, paying more attention. Just keep doing that. And remember you don’t have to feel bad about this.

some_guy ,

Over a decade ago, I dated someone of a different race from me. I remember being anxious that I wouldn’t recognize her in a crowd the first handful of times that we met in crowded places. I’ve become much better at distinguishing people of different races since, but that’s only because I have a lot of racial exposure where I live.

I don’t know any way of changing this natural occurrence other than repeated exposure. Your brain needs practice. You don’t sound the least bit racist. In fact, you sound the opposite because you’re looking for better mental tooling.

m0darn ,

My understanding based entirely on zero evidence is that our brains recognize faces based on that person’s differences from ‘average’. Where ‘average’ is the average face you see/ consider. And your brain mostly examines the parameters that help you distinguish between the people you normally consider.

So like a person’s eyes are one standard deviation larger than average and 5 standard decisions further apart. And their nose is 2 standard deviations longer than average and their nostrils are 1 standard deviation smaller than average.

Ethnic groups will have some parameters that vary a lot between them and some parameters that don’t, your brain just needs to learn. Basically just keep trying.

loaExMachina , (edited )

Tbf, the problem in terms of kpop celebrities isn’t that they’re asians, but how they adhere to pretty strict beauty standards and often use cosmetic surgery for this, so they do, in fact, look pretty similar to one-another. I definitely can’t recognize any K-Pop or J-pop idol’s face, but I’ve never had this problem with any asian I’ve known irl. So maybe don’t think too deeply into it, I don’t think there’s anything wrong or racist about what you describe. Maybe try watching some asian movies with a less “spotless” aesthetic, stuff not necessarily for a young audience or where everyone is supposed to look beautiful, and see if you still have the same problem.

TheCannonball ,

I taught in China for 9 years and i can tell you that asians all look different. I was good enough at the end to be able to tell who was Chinese, Korean, and Japanese based on bone structure alone. The hardest part is that when 400+ students all have the same haircuts and clothing style, then they really tend to blur together.

Chadus_Maximus ,

Yeah. What’s up with so many people choosing bowlcuts?

Tathas ,

I had some random lady at work ask me to guess what nationality she was based on her appearance, and then get all huffy when I didn’t answer with Okinawan. I mean, I didn’t even get close by saying Japanese. But I had a lot of Hmong and Vietnamese friends in high school, so, you know, I wasn’t even close.

djquadratic ,
@djquadratic@kbin.social avatar

This makes me think of those memes where people struggle with telling white male celebrities apart

TheActualDevil ,

Fun semi-related story. I used to work in an open kitchen where a lot of the cooking staff would interact with the customers pretty regularly. Quite often me and two other men in the kitchen would get confused with one another. I gave a guy some marinating tips one week. He comes back in a few days later and waves me over to tell me how well it went. Except he didn’t wave me over, it was a coworker he thought was me. I’d have people bring up previous conversations when I’ve never seen them before. After the 3rd time that kind of thing happened, it clicked. The 3 of us who got confused with each other were just very generic young white guys. One of them wore glasses and I sometimes wore them, sometimes wore contacts. Who I got confused with changed on whether I wore glasses or not, but it happened constantly in the years I worked there. And it was always other white people getting us confused. Looking like a generic white guy is 100% a thing.

octoperson ,

I thought Leo DiCaprio and Matt Damon were the same person for most of The Departed.

When Luke Skywalker has a vision of fighting Darth Vader, he opens the mask and sees … I think it’s his own face - it makes sense storywise that it’d be his own face, but I’ve never dared ask anyone and admit to not knowing.

I was really proud of myself for recognising that the two characters in Moon were the same actor. I figured it out, not by looking at their faces, but at the way the camera switched between them.

I’m a white guy, btw.

Tathas ,

You should watch Faces in the Crowd

skullgiver , (edited )
@skullgiver@popplesburger.hilciferous.nl avatar

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    GrayBackgroundMusic ,

    They were all hot, white men with a bit of facial hair, and I honestly had a hard time telling them apart.

    And sometimes they’re all named the same. youtu.be/MGurtL83zhY?t=107

    skullgiver , (edited )
    @skullgiver@popplesburger.hilciferous.nl avatar

    deleted_by_author

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    candybrie ,

    That’s so cool. It feels like some proof of us leaning into stereotypes rather than them being inherently true. Nurture rather than just nature in a sense.

    Eggyhead ,
    @Eggyhead@artemis.camp avatar

    Each culture has a standard of beauty that celebrities try to emulate as closely as possible. As someone who’s lived in an Asian country for over a decade, it’s actually not that hard for me to identify whether someone is Korean, Chinese, or Japanese based on how they dress and present themselves. Where it gets difficult are celebrity groups within those nationalities. I get actors, actresses, and pop stars mixed up all the time because they all try to do their make-up the same way. This isn’t exclusive to Asia though. Westerners do the same thing and can be just as difficult to tell apart. It’s just we’re far more accustomed to it. That lady from Barbie? I have no idea who she is in or out of costume and could probably take a few incorrect shots. I don’t even know if she’s North American or from some country in Europe or Oceania.

    AmidFuror ,

    Off topic, but Margot Robbie is Australian. Watch "The Wolf of Wall Street" and you will never forget her name.

    uberrice ,

    Australia is part of Oceania ;)

    AmidFuror ,

    I had the pleasure of visiting last year. Beautiful country.

    Chickenstalker ,

    Stop beating yourself up. We Asians can’t tell them apart too. Just enjoy the music without guilt.

    Nikls94 ,

    Knew an Asian guy who was in china with his family. He was looking in some store and when he looked back, everyone looked the same. He couldn’t tell his family apart from strangers.

    oldGregg ,

    And then everyone died

    redcalcium ,

    Korean celebrities are the exception. I’m an Asian and can’t tell them apart lol.

    TheActualDevil ,

    I assume that’s primarily from the over-abundance of plastic surgery in Korean celebrities that tends to genericize their features towards an ideal? I remember hearing about surgery being a huge thing years ago and I’m assuming it still is. They’re like, Stepford Wive’s-ing themselves visually and all end up looking generally the same when chasing attractiveness.

    STUPIDVIPGUY ,

    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)

    cloudless ,
    @cloudless@feddit.uk avatar

    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.

    …biomedcentral.com/…/s41065-018-0057-5

    STUPIDVIPGUY ,

    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

    Niello , (edited )

    Let me tell you an anecdote. I'm Asian and grew up in an Asian country. When I was studying abroad there's a time when my American friends were watching a Japanese drama series. I was the one asking them throughout the watch session who's who because I couldn't tell the actors' faces apart.

    Teon ,
    @Teon@kbin.social avatar

    Kpop is cool and all but not a great way to see the differences in people. Kpop idols are routinely made to look like other popular idols to appeal to a larger fan base. This happens in other cultures as well, US actresses for example!

    I would suggest you stick with Dramas to get a better mix of people. And mix it up by country. Add some Thai, Japanese and Chinese dramas to your watch list. At some point you will see the vast differences in just one nation, China is quite diverse in looks, Thailand as well. And it can't hurt to experience music and dramas from other parts of Asia like Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore, etc.

    And don't just limit yourself to Asia, really look at humanity. You would be surprised how often you can see the similarities between cultures. American Eskimos having Chinese traits. And I don't mean eyes, facial architecture varies worldwide.

    In America people think anyone Hispanic/Latin is Mexican (which is SOOOOO false). But Central and South Americans are just as diverse. The larger the mix of people from a continent you are exposed to, the easier it is to get a sense of where they may be from.
    All of humanity migrated from someplace, and we still do today.

    Kolanaki ,
    @Kolanaki@yiffit.net avatar

    Man, I am white, live in a predominantly white country, and notice even white people looking the same and confusing them for other people. I’m not so sure it’s such a big deal. Humans look pretty close together and is why we constantly bicker about small differences like skin color and eye size; cuz there ain’t much else that’s different. 🙁

    fiat_lux ,

    It's an easier task if you're looking at normal real people, not popstars deliberately selected for 'ideal' beauty archetypes, with professional makeup, filters, and editing.

    This reminds me of the Korean beauty pageant profile photo discussion 10 years ago.

    It's not necessarily so much a race thing as it is a 'cultural beauty ideals conformity' thing. There are a lot of similar looking white celebrities too, the blonde pop princess cloning machine was working overtime in the early 2000's.

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