[Rachel]

My kids have a tendency to identify any Asian as Chinese. I avoid doing this by finding out someone’s ethnicity first. Where we live now, there is a little of every ethnicity and I’d like the kids to not go around saying that Koreans, Filipinos, etc. are Chinese. How does one differentiate between the different Asians: Korean, Japanese, Filipino, Vietnamese, etc.?

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Name : Rachel, Gender : F, Sexual Orientation : Straight, Race : White/Caucasian, Age : 36, City : Niagara-on-the-Lake, State : NA, Country : Canada, Occupation : Homemaker, Education level : 4 Years of College, Social class : Middle class, 

[Christine28858]

Tell your kids just to refer to them as Asians. You don’t have to go into the whole ethnicity thing because even asking may seem intrusive. Anytine you catch your kids saying Chinese, correct them with the word ‘Asian’. It avoids much unwanted embarrassment for both the person and your kids ( and you).

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Name : Christine28858, Gender : F, City : Hartford, State : CT, Country : United States, Social class : Middle class, 

[Siggy]

If you really want to tell them apart, good luck! It’s quite a task to someone who hasn’t been exposed to a lot of different Asians before. I’m Asian and I can barely tell – though most Asians can usually tell where each of us are from. What complicates matters is there is intermarriage between different ethnicities. Also, the Chinese have migrated throughout history to many parts of Asia, giving their genetic material to other people. Don’t get me wrong, there are differences, be it skin tone, facial structures and yes, the eyes. But faced with historical migration, marriage and European colonialism, many Asians are actually mixed.

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Name : Siggy, Race : Asian, City : Newport Beach, State : CA, Country : United States, 

[Rose28714]

Just encourage them to use ‘Asian’.

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Name : Rose28714, Gender : F, Age : 26, City : San Francisco, State : CA, Country : United States, 

[J]

I’m from Vancouver, where there is a huge Chinese population, and I find it offensive when whites ask me what a particular word means in Chinese, or when Chinese people come up to me and start speaking in their native language. I don’t mind if it comes from children, but I get very annoyed with adults. To answer your question, there is a way but it’s not always 100 percent accurate. Generally, people from mainland China or Korea tend to be a little taller, have the stereotypical ‘squinty’ Asian eyes, and are usually fairer. Southern Asians (including Filipinos and Indonesians) tend to be shorter, darker-skinned and have large round eyes. Vietnamese people tend to be pretty fair, with large eyes, but they tend to be quite small on average (for guys, usually around 5’7″), and Japanese people are also fairly short and tend to be fairer, with squinty eyes. I’m Korean, but many people automatically assume I’m Chinese, which I do find annoying. I think it’s great what you are doing and it sounds like your children will grow up to be intelligent, considerate people.

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Name : J, Race : Asian, Religion : Christian, Age : 21, City : Vancouver, British Columbia, State : na, Country : Canada, Education level : 4 Years of College, Social class : Middle class, 

[Sara]

My adopted cousin is part Vietnamese and part Cambodian. When he went to Vietnam, apparently people knew he wasn’t completely Vietnamese and there was some discrimination because of this. I wonder if among native Asian people if ethnic discrimination may be more heightened than in the U.S.?

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Name : Sara, Gender : F, Age : 22, City : Mt. Vernon, State : IA, Country : United States, Occupation : college student, 

[JOHN]

I am white and my wife is from the Philippines. The confusion that arises when people try to distinguish nationalities is not limited to white people trying to tell the nationalities of different Asians. My wife is constantly approached by Mexicans who attempt to speak to her in Spanish. This is not cause to be offended, but when she tries to explain to them she doesn’t speak Spanish they usually become offended. This behavior is offensive to her and I. I can usually spot a person from the Philippines a mile away (curiously better than my wife most of the time) and I find it ridiculous that the Mexicans cannot tell that she is not one of them. Something that struck me as kind of funny is that when we visited the Philippines last time we went to a restaurant/bar frequented by several expatriates from the U.S.,U.K.,Australia,New Zealand, Canada,Switzerland, etc. We were invited to join the group in a few drinks. My wife’s uncle whom I deeply respect and whom I generally consider well educated continually referred to the group as Americans even thought I explained they were not all American. If I recall only 1 or 2 of them were American. I found this kind of funny but after correcting him at least twice that they were not in fact all Americans out of respect I quit correcting him. I think the vast majority of the time people mean no harm when they mistake a person’s nationality. They simply do not know any better.

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Name : JOHN, Gender : Male, Sexual Orientation : Straight, Race : White/Caucasian, Religion : Wiccan, Age : 47, City : Zolfo Springs, State : FL, Country : United States, Occupation : Detention Deputy, Education level : Technical School, Social class : Middle class, 

[Desa]

When people say ‘Asian’ they usually mean people from the Far East, not the Middle East. So ‘Asian’ still complicates the issue!

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Name : Desa, City : Fairfax, State : VA, Country : United States, 

[Rebekah]

I’m interested that you find it annoying, as a Korean, to be mistaken for a Chinese person. I lived in Korea for almost three years, and everybody automatically assumed I was from the States (I was born and raised in Canada). They next asked if I was Russian. Some of my Korean friends asked me how we could differentiate between the ‘Americans’ and the ‘Russians’, as we lived in a major port city, Pusan, with lots of sailors from Russia. The best I could do was the following: facial bone structure is more telltale than eye shape or nose size, and if they’re tourists, clothing brand names and fashion styles are a dead giveaway. Now that I live in Australia, I can spot most visiting Koreans, and Japanese a MILE away, because I’ve become familiar with their dress styles, and some basic physical attributes. In Australia now, though, as soon as people hear my accent, they also assume I’m from the States. So, it’s best to stick to the general terms: Asian, North American, South American, European, African…. you get the picture. Coming from a multicultural country, I usually don’t look for ‘ethnic’ signs first, I just assume you’re Canadian or Australian (when in-country) until proven otherwise.

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Name : Rebekah, Gender : F, Age : 32, City : Melbourne, State : NA, Country : Australia, Education level : Over 4 Years of College, 

[David]

My mother is Asian but I grew up in Australia in an area with few Asians. When I first went to university and started meeting Asian students studying there, it was sometimes hard at first to tell the difference between individuals, let alone what country they were from. I figure it was because, despite having seen an Asian face every day for my whole life, I wasn’t used to recognizing the reference points in Asian faces. After making many Asian friends, quite a few of them later told me that they couldn’t tell the difference between white people at first, either. It all comes down to what you’re used to seeing. Through experience I can now usually tell which part of Asia someone is from. There are some faces that are obviously Chinese/Japanese/Korean, but I find there is a certain amount of overlap, especially between Japanese and Koreans (for obvious historical reasons.) Environment plays a big part, too. For example, Koreans or Chinese who were born/raised in Japan look very Japanese, and the ethnic Japanese who were left in China as infants after WWII look very Chinese. Hong Kong Chinese look different from Singaporean or Indonesian Chinese and so on. Japanese Americans, especially 3rd or 4th-generation people, also look different from Japanese people in Japan because they have grown up speaking English, smiling and laughing like Americans, and this shows in their facial expressions and behavior.

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Name : David, Gender : M, Race : Eurasian, Age : 35, City : Tokyo, State : NA, Country : Japan, Education level : 4 Years of College, Social class : Middle class, 

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