Could you differentiate people from these three countries- Japan, China and Korea? Based on my experiences and observations, when I happened to stay with four girls from these countries for four months, I could say that it does not difficult to distinguish these people. For those who are not familiar with the people from these East Asian countries, it is almost impossible to be able to segregate them by just seeing their photographs. Unless, there are some clues, like traditional attire they wear or you know them.

Therefore, I would like to introduce two strategies for the investigation which are that you need to first observe them and interact with them. These two so-called strategies of mine, however, are based on my experience and informal experiment. They cannot be considered as a ‘theory’ of how to distinguish East Asians. Furthermore, the findings I would like to present afterward cannot be generalized or standardized to all people of these countries. But you can use the findings just for fun or to compare with what you know. You might find it different.

Apparently, people will first look at the face or skin of a person they want to identify before predicting that person’s ethnic group. But the probability of being correct is about fifty-fifty. My first strategy might help reducing your risk of getting errors. So the probability might be changed to seventy-thirty.

Frankly speaking, we hardly differentiate skin color amongst Japanese, Korean and Chinese people. They look the same for me. But when it comes to the observation of their faces, which seem to be very alike, it is easier.

My previous picture of Chinese people was that they all had small eyes. But Chinese friends of mine confirmed that most of Chinese people from the main land have big eyes. They also told me that having small eyes considered not attractive. I actually disagreed with them. I think having small eyes is very attractive. But I totally agreed with their first information. On the other hand, many Korean people are the ones who have small eyes, especially Korean men. I, several times, mistakenly identified a Korean man as a Chinese one. After many times of wrong predictions, I realized that a Korean man’s eyes are smaller than a Chinese man’s. Many Korean girls also have got small eyes, but they can increase the size by putting make up. Moreover, Korean girls love putting lip stick. It seems to be a must for them to color their lips. For both Japanese men and women, most of them have got bigger eyes with two-level eye lids.

The second strategy is to have interactions with them. To differentiate these people by interacting with them is not just simply asking them where they are from since it is too easy to study people’s identities or to get to know people the way they really are through this direct question. Moreover, you might be involved with prejudgment if you first know a country they come from.

If you have an opportunity to talk to the people from these three countries, you can see humbleness in them. This is considered as an Asian characteristic. But the degrees of humbleness amongst them are different. The humblest ones are Japanese people. However, Korean people are very much practicing seniority. Young Korean people very respect whoever older than them, even one-year older. For Chinese youngsters, they are not much different from other Asian ones in the sense of giving respect to older people.

Amongst the three countries, surprisingly, Korean cuisines are spicier than the others’. I first thought their taste of food was same. But I was happened to know that many Korean people love having spicy food, while, many Japanese people cannot stand the taste of spicy. Chinese people have abilities of having hot food differently. It depends on the area of China they come from.

These are just few short guidelines for you to be able to segregate people amongst these countries. Please try these strategies yourself to find out if my findings are wrong.