Before You Go...
Be sure to grab this quick and useful guide to saying nationalities in Japanese. Simply enter your name & email below, and it'll magically be delivered to your inbox.
I hope you had fun with part one of the Asian faces quiz. You've had a chance to distinguish between Asian women's faces (namely Japanese, Chinese, and Korean faces). Now it's time to flip it. Let's take a look at Asian men in this quiz. See what differences you can spot, if any.
Before I do, though, quick story. I had a surprise Skype call from my Dad one day and when he came on, I saw some my my extended family with him (mostly aunts and uncles). I was all smiles and laughs because I hadn't seen them in forever. Then one of my uncles was like "Hey Donald, how's China?" I didn't physically facepalm, but I most certainly did in my mind. I then did a polite, correction segue? "Oh. How's Japan? It's good."
My uncle proved that people even get the countries confused! You can only imagine how people would do the same with faces & nationalities.
Asian Men Faces Quiz Instructions
In this quiz, see if you can tell the difference between Asian Men's Faces. This men's edition quiz (yes, there's a women's edition of this quiz, too) shows ten different Asian men. All ten men are either Japanese, Chinese, Or Korean. Click the answer that you think is the best match.
Don't forget to use the quiz's scroll bar to answer all ten questions.
COULD YOU DISTINGUISH ASIAN MEN'S FACES?
If you were able to look at this list of Asian men and distinguish their nationalities, that's AMAZING! If you weren't able to distinguish, we have a lot in common 😉
While I have made a video on "Standards of Handsomeness," I kinda feel like I need to do a full post on this subject, because I find it intriguing. From my perspective, what defines a handsome Asian man, or any man for that matter, seems like it's not as dependent on looks alone. More food for thought.
I hope you had fun with this quiz, too. There are more on the way!
BEFORE YOU GO!
In the quiz you tried to distinguish nationalities just by looking at them. A much easier way to figure out nationality is to ask where someone is from. If you're learning Japanese, one great basic to understand is how to say nationalities in Japanese. In this quick guide, I'm going to show you exactly how to do that.
I don't need your email. Just click on the globe and download the pdf instantly!
I don’t remember my answers were since I didn’t have the courage to post them but I know it would have been an epic fail! haha
* Devin bows to those who answered *
Ah the center male is a Chinese-American singer Wang Leehom. I got all the males right but mixed up the Chinese and Korean for the females…oops
Thank you so much, Steph! I had been trying to figure out who he was for the longest. Cool! Good job on the quiz 🙂
Same here. The last lady screwed me over so hard. I thought she was Japanese because of her pretty eyes then I saw the first lady then I realised no thats the Japanese lady not the third one. Then the middle one didn’t look Korean but the third one didn’t look Korean either. What the hell.
I actually got them all correct! 😀 The easiest way to tell the difference between them is that the Japanese are a bit more Caucasian looking since there was probably some mingling with them around the time of the war. Koreans usually have slightly smaller eyes and more of a round face. The Chinese have larger eyes than most Koreans and have a nose that doesn’t have as much of a bridge as the nose of a Japanese person (kind of in between a Korean and Japanese nose). But sometimes it’s complicated to tell because they could have mingled with people from other Asian countries. :/
KUDOS! KUDOS!! KUDOS!!! You are officially the first person to get them all right, Andrea (goodness knows I couldn’t do it!). Thanks for posting about the little nuances that helped you figure it out. CONGRATS!
i got the center dude right. and i got all my women right tht just means i pay more attention to the women then to the men lol
Same here, I got all the females correct but none of the males.
Nice work, Doug. You did better than me and I made freakin’ quiz! LOL 😀
The Chinese guy is Wang Lee Hom
Thanks Jazuma. I appreciate that!
The guy in the center is the hardest to guess but I got everything right. As for the rest of them it was easy to tell. Except for the looks there’s something about the aura around them that they are who they are. But then again it’s probably because I’m also Asian that’s why it easy.
That’s hard. I’m asian too but it’s hard for me to differentiate between korean, japanese and chinese. I got all the men wrong , but I got the korean girl right.
Me too i got all the men wrong but all i got all the asian women right though
I got both the Chinese right, but I mixed up the Koran and Japanese faces.
😀 I’m Asian, BTW.
The girls were easy especially since Gong Li is international known Chinese actress. But the guys were not as easy especially since the one in the middle is of Chinese-Japanese heritage.
The one in the middle is Wang Lee Hom, a very popular Taiwanese singer. Please, no need to argue with people who are in Asia.
The guy in the middle is actually Tsuyoshi Abe, and yeah he’s Chinese-Japanese mix. I recognized him from Hana Yori Dango.
The guy in the middle is pure chinese from Taiwan. His name is wang leehom. He is very famous among the chinese.
It’s Wang Lee Hom, a famous Chinese singer.
Q.Q I’m taiwanese and I all got it wrong
Thanks for trying! I had hard time, too, and I made the quiz 🙁 🙂
LOL Awww
Im American (with heritage of many other countries, and by many, I mean a freaking lot) but I succeeded. Its ok, mistakes are always made. 🙂
Lmao how do you not know Wang Lee Hom. His career started in Taiwan. xD
The guy in the middle is Leehom Wang! geez, i still cant believe that there is some asian still dont know who is Leehom ><
I got all men right, and 2 women right. I am not Asian, but I know and have met a lot of Japanese and Korean people (and I’ve been to China). I noticed that Japanese people have more bony faces, often large caucasian-looking pointy noses with large bridges, and often non-slanted eyes. Korean people often have rounder faces, with “flatter” noses. Chinese people often have rounder faces but single eyelid, like caucasians, only slanted. Just my observations 🙂
How do you get 2/3 women right? Shouldn’t be possible using common sense
Maybe guessed 2 women as e.g both are chinese haha
Chinese women look like william hung and margaret cho
i’m afraid you’re unaware Margaret Cho is Korean-American
How could you guess two correct? If you guessed one wrong it means another is wrong. Lol.
Chinense are anthropologically “palaungid” (look it up) = proto-Tungid. Chinese are 50% austronesian (austro) origins in Nepal thus chinese most typically look like Malaysian aboriginals having round brown faces, short piggy flat noses, bulbous dark eyeballs, very short limbs and minus a neck, sickly yellow oil china skin, spindly alien hair that sticks up like static electricity or porcupine, crusty fish lips etc. Now you people brag that some of you only look human because of your Altaic seed? Hello?
chinense are anthropologically “palaungid” =
proto-Tungid. Chinese are 70% austronesian ancestral who crawled out
from Bangkok Thailand to live in the north underneath the Great Wall as to live closeby the NEA master race overlord of asian primitive negritos HOW DARE YOU LITTLE ILLEGAL ALIENS LOL chinese = identical in looks
and genes to Malaysian negritos. Both have ROUND (brownie) faces, flat
pig noses, bulbous dark eyeballs, short limbs minus neck, no chin etc.
Now you people brag that some of you people (from the northeast) only
look human because of your Altaic seed? Hello? That’s like maybe 2% of
your entire population hello.
tawanese girl look’s like japanese..
you can take some tawanese’s artist photo…
Tawanese is chinese, Right?…
but i couldnt find the same of chinese mainland and tawanese… the both look diffrent…
i’m okinawan chinese hakka…
my father is okinawan and my mother is chinese briges in indonesia… i live in indonesia now…
but in here, they think me just a chinese… one day i said to my friend i’m japanese.. he shocked that…
he didnt belive…
so my conclusion, they are sometime hard to diffrent thats are chinese or
japanese…
but korean is easier to diffrent that…
in facts japanese is = YDNAsouth chinnese around fujian (guangdong) and taiwan mixture with YDNA korean (largest) + YDNA ainu (large) + a little bit mtDNA russia. Genetic facts, korean close to japan, but japan close to chinnese rather than korea
Got all women right, clueless with males. Maybe ‘cuz I am a male?
I was the same! But I’m a girl
when you joins the japanese boy and girl, chinese boy and girl, korean boy and girl and it’ll be the
perfect couples…
I got the girls all right but the guys all wrong – interesting 😛
Leehom is Taiwanese, not Chinese
american please
Taiwanese can be considered Chinese. Some do and some don’t consider Taiwanese as Chinese. Also, Leehom was born in the U.S. And guys, in case you didn’t know, Korean and Japanese people tend to look more alike than Chinese and Japanese/Korean. (I’m Chinese, trust me, a lot of my friends are Asian.)
Taiwanese are ethnic Chinese like Chinese Singaporeans. Struggling against what is a FACT just looks silly.
I got it all correct!! :DD
I got all the guys correct, and the girls i was incorrect with the Chinese and Japanese, but the Korean girl was easy to identify. Guys are easier to identify. ^-^
I got all of them correct but I think it would have been harder if the photos were of less famous people.
I got the women right but failed with the men. I don’t think I did so bad having only spent one week of my life in East Asia.
I got both men and women right 😀
I got women right, men wrong XD
Same here. Inshallah, Kashmir banegaa Pakistan!
I got the chicks correct! Inshallah, one of those shall be mine!
I got all the men right, but all the women wrong. Interesting.
Japanese are more likely to have facial Hair cause of Ainu genes.
Ainu DNA was bred out.
Considering that 75% of them got eyelid surgeries… kinda flawed test, even if I got all the guys right, doncha think?!!
Haha, sorry, no. Eyelid has nothing to do with it, although the percentages will differ. The noses+eyes+eyebrows and for the girls, make up, give it away.
I got all men right and only the woman in the center…its very hard to tell.
I got all the women right, but I correctly guessed the Japanese man. I went to school with many Asian exchange students, so I can usually tell the difference between the three countries. They were mostly Korean and Japanese, though. The closest we had to a Chinese student was a girl from Taiwan. Though, I guess Taiwan still counts as having Chinese heritage.
Who chene or Japanguy or korea 🙂 I’m Live In “Isreal ” But I’m Arbic 🙂
I’m Live I’n Isreal 🙂 Now raining
انا عربي
Yup 😀 😀 🙂
I love Korea and I love Japan and I love China
Me too, yet I got it all wrong
There are pictures in my phone for Japan, China and the Curia, I printed images with regards Natalia
مرحبا يا يابان والصين والكوريا انا احبكم لا تنسوني انا احبكم كلكم كلكم انا اسمي ناتاليا يمكننا ان اتعرف على يابان او صيني او كورية ارجوكم
Oh hello Japan, China and the Curia, I love you, I love you not Tnsona all of you all of you My name is Natalia We can not know the Japanese or Chinese or Korean ÇŃĚćßă
:)))))))))))))
I got all the women correct but the guys.. umm… o_o
i got some . but i guess No one is perfect.
The woman part, I thought the one at the center is the japanese! Even though at first I was confident the one on the left is the japanese…
Holy cow. I got every woman right and every man wrong! Man, what are the odds of that?
Me too bud!
I got every man right and every woman wrong.
Me too lol
I got all the giys right and all girls wrong
Same here …. I nailed the women! (Q|Q)
– but I only got the Chinese guy correct.
Probably because media don’t emphasize on men like women.
Purely guessing, but I managed to get them all right. Does it sound odd if I say I just looked at each of them and thought “they look Japanese, Chinese, Korean”?
I actually feel good that I managed to get them right. I’m not Asian and I haven’t been around a great number of Asian people, so it feels good that to me they look likw all separate people and the whole “White people think all Asians look alike” stereotype doesn’t apply.
I got them all right except the chinese guy n the japanese guy i got mixed up woot! Its kinda hard to tell with those to
I got them all right! I can tell the difference.
i guessed all the women right, and i only got one of the dudes right.
I got all the guys right, but all the girls wrong. I feel bad because people get really offended when you can’t tell if they are Korean or Japanese or Chinese, but it is so hard for me. Maybe if I was surrounded by them I would be able to make a distinction. I live around Detroit, MI, so I don’t really see a lot of Asians.
That’s weird. None of my Asian American friends get that way. In fact all freely admit to me they cannot tell one another apart without knowing their names! What kind of people do you talk to?
And you have done nothing wrong in being unable to tell. I’ve done research into this. They’re the same race with mixed DNA. Some people especially the ethnocentric ones can’t tell the difference between race and culture/nationality and make a big deal out of something that means nothing. It’s not your fault.
We’re all the same race! There is only one and its the Human Race
Its fine.
Most Asians living in Asia can’t tell a French person from a Spanish person from an Italian person either. They all look like “westerners” to them 🙂
Actually… I have trouble telling apart Spaniards from Italians… and I’m part Spanish AND part Italian xD
Hm, not too big of a deal. As long as you can kind of tell or at least distinguish between people, tis all cool. I don’t usually immediately look at a white person and say FRENCH, GERMAN, RUSSIAN, CZECH… We can all ask and be respectful 🙂
don’t feel bad. everyone looks different so it WOULD be hard to distinguish between similar ethnicities.
I got both men and women right. I’m a brazilian girl, I have never been in Japan, Korea or China and I don’t have contact with people from there but I use to watch doramas and movies from these 3 countries then I knew Gong Li, for example. By what I saw in general, chinese and korean people seem to be more touchy compared to japanese. In japanese doramas or movies, they bow a lot, however few times I see hugs even among family members. Chinese, to me, have more remarkable and deeper eyes and many chinese women have a prominent forehead.Korean, in geral, seem to have more proportional faces among them.
Got it all right.
i got all three women correct. i didnt care about the men. i love asian women
I got all the females right! I only got the center male right, but, hey, four out of six! I normally can’t do this in real life, but this had it narrowed it down to three countries. ^.^
I did get all the women correct and the Korean man, but the other two men I had wrong.
The last lady screwed me over so hard. I thought she was Japanese because of her pretty eyes then I saw the first lady then I realised no thats the Japanese lady not the third one. Then the middle one didn’t look Korean but the third one didn’t look Korean either. What the hell.
Really? To me the last woman looked so Korean that I ruled out the others.
I nailed it! I do live in Beijing though. In a Korean part of town.
I say whatever people
I got all of them correct! I am Latino but have been living in Japan for 9 years. I had trouble with choosing the correct Japanese and Korean women but guessed correctly with luck.
I am usually good at telling apart different Asians but not always. There is something about the skin tone, hairstyle, make up, lips, eye shape, (that includes the guys LOL!) That helps me distinguish who is who.
I got the Japanese man and woman right, but failed miserable on the others. I never really pay to much attention to stuff like this, just found this page by accident. I was curious if Chinese and Japanese people were friends, like overall, do people living in China like people who live in Japan? And vice versa. Just curious really.
I got the woman right, but tthe man… Not even one.
got everything right 😀 and im not even asian
i got them correct
hihi it was fun
dooomo arigatogozaimashita for the quiz
mata ne!
oh oh and how did i get them right? the men i just guessed in fact
but the women, i could destinguish the korean first coz i saw a korean actress with eyes like this bfor
the japanese eyes are kinda, well, a little more oval than the chinese so that’s how i got it correct!
The man in the Center is Tsuyoshi Abe. He is of a mixed descent, chinese and japanese. Though he was born in China, he is an actor in Japan, as he moved there when he was only 9. He changed his name to Tsuyoshi Abe from his original chinese name, Li Zhendong, when he moved to Japan.
I got the women right but I mixed up 1 and 2 on the men.
I’m female – maybe its easier to judge female faces if you’re female yourself?
Oh and I’m Caucasian from UK btw 🙂
In example above, Korean woman (Han Ye Seul) has huge eyes. There is smaller difference between Chinse? and Korean (Kwan Sang Woo) man.
I believe that names make the difference and by name we can tell what
nationality they are, not by the looks. Look can aways be changed.
In Both I guessed the person with Korean heritage correctly, but mixed up both the Chinese & Japanese persons.
Yea this is the story of my life with Asian faces. I got all the women right, but none of the men. The 3rd man is cheating, his face looks anglicized to me.
I’m non-Asian man, and I was teaching my son who is 5 not to ask every person with Asian features if they are Japanese. He is a golfer and he told the mother and daughter of one of his competitors that he knows Japanese too. They are Korean. It actually would have been funny if the little girl wasn’t with her mother. While I am NOT politically correct, I AM very concerned about the feelings of little children.
As for the quiz, I thought for sure that I would get this quiz right, and I didn’t. Here is my question: Does the Chinese girl in the middle have typical Chinese features? To me, she seemed to have Japanese features – shows how much I know. As for what the men are? WHO CARES! Only pay attention to girl pics! LOL
Chinese are diverse lol. You have northern Chinese who look more Mongolian or Korean, and southern Chinese who look more Vietnamese, and everyone else in the middle.
The Chinese girl (Gong Li)’s ancestry is Shandong province which is literally across the pond (Yellow Sea) from Korea.
i’m really lucky i just know the first man from Medical Top Team so i know he is Korean but i didn’t know the others.. still i got every woman and man true O.o
That’s Wang Leehom in the centre <3 <3
Got the Japanese man and woman, but confused Korean with Chinese. 🙁
I got them all right! i would like to thank kdramas lol. i can tell from the noses !
I got all of em correct cuz I am a face analyst.still tuff tho……..with some of them having surgeries.
I’m anglo-saxon Australian and I got them all correct. Depends on how much attention you pay in everyday life – I’m attracted to Asian (particularly Korean) guys, and I have a lot of Asian friends. I can’t tell you Russian from Germain from Irish though, so it definitely depends on your own experience.
I got them all wrong except for the woman on the far right. I stumbled on this look to find the differences between Asians with all due respect. I came across some posts stating that “Caucasians all look the same” Say what? Im not blonde/blue eyed but I am pale. Its was then that I decided I’d better learn to recognize people from all walks. Everyone deserves be recognized for whom they are, not lumped together under a generalization based on race.
haha got all the females yay!
I got the first and the last male wrong, but I got the middle one right ><.
yes yes yes i only got one the korean and japanese girls confused but i can see my mistake
Lol, got them all right. It depends. You really need to be familiar, or hat least have seen more, because then you can say, hey this looks like so and so, and so and so is ___…
Chinese can be difficult to pinpoint, because ethnically, they are very diverse and are mixed. Each province has distinct characteristics depending on this, however.
For the girls, the Japanese one has these thicker eyebrows and the higher, mildly curved nose. The Korean one has the super puffy under eye thing, which is most often pronounced in koreans. Plus, she has plastic surgery on her nose, and her makeup aligns to Kpop fashion.
For the guys, the Japanese one has, yet again, the nose. If you notice, Japanese men usually have more scruffy hairstyles. The Korean guy has the position of the eyes and that type of nose, which would in no way ever be considered attractive in China. Ok, maybe it could, but definitely not mainstream. The guy in the middle has a straight nose, and generally has a soother more downwards/middle feeling to his face, so he is chinese.
That was pretty easy though. I got them all right.
If you hang out with Asians and are Asian yourself.
I got them all right
уєѕ! ι києω ι ωαѕ ¢σяяє¢т(тσтαℓ ρяι∂є σνєяℓσα∂ιиg му нαρριмєѕѕ яιgнт иσω)
I got all the men wrong and all the women right.
I got all right, and I’m no specialist I dont think
The Chinese man called Leehom Wang, he is a Chinese American.
First of all, Northern Chinese looks exactly the same as Korean and most of Japanese, Southern Chinese shows very significant different features with those ethnicities.
I got all the girls right and only the Japanese male right :0
Not going to lie, even though I’m a little embarrassed – I got them all right, but only because I knew that there was one Korean person, one Japanese person, and one Chinese person in each set of three.
Had I been looking without that knowledge, I would have guessed Japanese, Chinese, Japanese for the women, and Korean, Chinese, White for the men.
Yes, I know.
Got em all. I love Korean women. All Asians have beautiful people. Damn the Japanese guy is stunning.
I have to admit that both the male and female Koreans look plastic surgery enhanced. Japanese guy is very WOW.
Had to think a lot, but 100%!! So happy 😀
I got the women right but not the men and I’m Chinese
I got them all right o-e I thought I would but I wasn’t expecting to actually do it lmaooo I think I need to spend some time off of the internet lol
Why don’ t you use models who haven’t had cosmetic surgery to get European features; not that I could tell the difference anyway as my friends and family who are Asian admittedly can’t. I just wish that we could get some real native features not man-made or hapa like Asian celebs are known for. I’m just sayin……
I succeeded
The middle guy is Wang Lee Hom, Chinese-American Singer-Songwriter born in NY
I don’t know the man in question, but Abe is a Japanese name.
I got mixed up with 2 and 3.
Of the men i thought 1 ch 2 k 3 j but 1 is k and 2 ch. Of the ladies i got exactly right. I felt surer n the men being as i had thought.
Haha, I’m 50% Korean and usually am pretty good but I got all the guys wrong but did good on the girls.
Hey chinese stop sucking ur own penises your faces are not structured or defined compared to koreans or japanese. Chinese have flat faces with weak chin/jaw lines and snubby noses…
Wow aren’t you rude?
Ikr like i never did anything to u
Not true… my sister has a skinny face and everything and shes chinese (not all chinese are like that kk…)
I got it for the (lovely) women right away. (Of course, I cheated I guess, seeing as how I lived in Japan for 15 years, and have been married to both Japanese and Chinese women.) [Didn’t try with the guys — I don’t care about guys enough to even look at them for 5 seconds!] (FYI, I’m a Caucasian American. I’m not actually a Vogon!)
Yay!! I got all of them right!! I’m an Indian, btw!!
I find it hard to believe with the men I got one right but with the women I accurately guessed them correct, I’m american by the way
Got all the girls right, easy, but the guys arent typical. The Japanese guys looks Hapa (which is a Hawaiian word for Half White).
I had a good friend who is Korean try to shame me because I asked her if her family was Korean or Chinese and she said, “Dont tell me you one of THOSE people who CANT TELL!
So I girlfriended her and told her I bet she was one of THOSE people who cant tell the difference between a German person and a French person. ( I picked those two because for the most part those two are very different).
Her responce was that my challenge was irrelevant.
Dont feel bad if you didnt get it right, turns out to my friend shock and horror she is 1/4 Chinese and she didnt know.
I did not do very well, but I think it is easier to tell the nationalities with older subjects, these youngsters are only babies (nearly) and it takes time for character to shape features.
I got the ladies right, mixed up the Japanese and Korean for the men. Tough quiz! In the women, it was more a matter of expression (at least for me) than features. Definitely an interesting exercise.
I got 7/10 – girls
9/10 – guys
xD
If you look at the general popuation of koreans without plastic surgery then I can pick them out , other than that it is hard.
I got all the guys right and 8/10 for women. A bit tougher for the women with the makeup and photoshop (perhaps even plastic surgery?) that subtly alter their features. I would prefer if the photos feature the average person on the street.
Probably because women are much more portrayed in media I got 8 of women right whereas 3 of men.
I got three women wrong and three men wrong LOL *=(Japanese and Korean are really easy to tell…)
I’m 1/2 white and chinese
I’m Korean and I got some parts wrong lol
I got mostly all the females wrong but did better on the males. I tried remembering the theory but that does not apply nowadays.
I recognized 1 woman and 1 men from korean dramas
Just surfing the web and came across this! I’ve always wanted to try a quiz like this. Scored 6/10. Cool blog! I’ll be traveling to Tokyo for the second time in December 2017. For now, I’ll be snooping around your blog to see what info I can use. 8)
I really sucked at this. I could only tell the Korean women apart because of the straight eyebrows and makeup. There’s something about Korean makeup that to me stands out the most I guess…
I got 8 out of 10 right for women and 7 out of 10 right for men and I am african
I’m a British girl, I got 8 of 10 correct. And the first failure I clicked by accident. I’m ashamed!
Geez, some of those comments are ridiculous. Caucasian race by far has the most plastic surgeries in the world. Mostly to cover their ugly face or insecurity tough.
hahaha 9/10 for women and 8/10 for men. i got this
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ba65648e5cb508a63f71662add2f29dba307ac679e5246e701bde107e894527a.jpg
I Got 8 out of 10 😉 All thanks to Korean ,Chinese and Japanese Dramas.