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These are photos that show architectural details such as patterns.
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Am asian myself, got 6/18 too.
CJK people actually do look very similar anyway, which is not surprising as there are a lot of shared genetics.
The way people tell them apart is going to be mostly based on current popular fashion, which is quite difficult to do with these bust shots and what I'm guessing are older pictures
By johnzim 2026-02-194:32 Ditto (albeit Eurasian)
The problem is I put like 70% as Chinese, because I guarantee there's a Chinese person in the world who looks exactly like the portrait. China is so mixed that it's a total wildcard.
By jquery 2026-02-193:01 Yeah, none of these were obvious to me. China is an especially massive country and none of these people would look out of place in parts of China (I've seen every one of these facial types in China speaking native Mandarin). Most of the "signal" is gonna be from fashion, and/or the biases of the test-maker in what they choose to represent and how closely those faces match stereotypes.
By rf15 2026-02-1910:29 lots of contact with asian people here, definitely all look different, watch japanese and korean dramas on the regular so should be able to tell at least those. 6/18, funniest thing was to me though thinking "oh you're definitely japanese" and being spot on twice. The biggest shortcoming on this quiz: not telling you the correct answer, or the site giving guidance/examples of their data set.
This website is just the author's personal judgment exercise.
>are older pictures
I am pretty sure it's 20+ years old. Just based on when I remember taking it.
By KPGv2 2026-02-194:40 https://web.archive.org/web/20021206055155/http://alllooksam...
Sep 14, 2001 it was taken out of beta.
I remember taking it as a freshman in college and getting well above random chance. 60–70% correct? A year later I took it with my sophomore roommate, from China. Again, 2/3-ish correct. He scored about random chance from what I recall.
I've always thought you could tell. Not 100% of the time; there's plenty of genetic mixing, Japanese people and Koreans share somewhat recent genetic history, Korea and China border each other, China is a ton of different ethnicities, etc. But certainly better than random chance if you've been around enough East Asians in your life.
I agree with a descendant above who said fashion is really useful. That's super true. I used to joke at uni that an East Asian wearing pastels was invariably Korean (this is very much NOT the case in SK these days). Japanese have had very distinct youth fashions for twenty years, as I lived there and witnessed them, and nowadays I can be across the playground with my kids and see a woman and immediately know by what she's wearing that she's from Japan.
China, being enormous, is a mixed bag.
That being said, there's facial structure stuff. It's kind of hard to put into words. It's a vibe you get. There's a university (Penn State or something?) that has a professor who puts his huge survey sociology class online. He talks about this, that early and constant exposure to some group(s) makes you better, for the rest of your life, and recognizing them. Has to do with attractiveness, too.
He brings white girls up to pick which Asian guy is the most attractive, and you can tell they really struggle to articulate it. But he brings Asian girls up and say exactly which one and explain why from his clothes, his facial features, etc.
It really is like if you aren't around (in this case) Asian people growing up, you have a kind of facial blindness where they alldolooksame.
I'm white and got 7/18 and it said "You can't tell the difference" but I think it's because some of them I had no idea. There were a few where I was really sure and I turned out to be right.
I think it's the same with white people. There are some who look unique to their country and I can tell with high confidence but for others, I have no idea; they just look like a generic white person.
For example, I think these public figures look/looked very stereotypical for their country:
German: Otto Von Bismarck
English/Scottish: Hugh Grant, David Bowie, Winston Churchill, Maggie Smith
French: Napoleon, Jacque Chirac, Alain Delon, Gerard Depardieu, Francoise Hardy
American: Clint Eastwood, Abraham Lincoln, JFK
Swedish: Agnetha Faltskog
Please find me an American, or other human being, that looks like Abraham Lincoln.
By true_religion 2026-02-2212:58 https://www.buzzfeed.com/jonmichaelpoff/presidential-descend...
He had a family and their descendants naturally look like him.
By postsantum 2026-02-1914:12 Inversely Amazing. Not easy to get all that wrong. Out of 18, you scored 3
lol
By throwaway2037 2026-02-1912:11 Twenty five years ago, I lived in San Francisco. This website was "talk of the town" for a quick minute. The real trick is looking at people's hair styles. In my experience, fashion indicates one's ethnicity/nationality much more than face shape alone. Think about a blond Italian from northern Italy, vs a blond German from southern Germany. They will have wildly different fashion styles (clothes and hair). The same for a Londoner and a Parisian.
By michaelteter 2026-02-190:514 reply 11/18 :)
What’s really wild to me is having spent time in both Mexico and Thailand, I have seen some people in Mexico that could have a twin in Thailand. That was really unexpected.
By throwaway2037 2026-02-1912:171 reply This is a really interesting comment. Sometimes when I see photos of native people from South America (especially anything Amazonian), they do look a bit South East Asian to me. Do you think those people that you saw in Mexico were mixed (or fully) native (not European by descent)?
By umanwizard 2026-02-1915:45 Asians and indigenous people from the Americas are somewhat closely related (the Americas were populated from Asia not too terribly long ago, about 20,000 years), so it makes sense.
By christophilus 2026-02-1911:21 My Vietnamese friend and I once went to a Philippine food festival. Most of the Filipino people there tried to talk to my friend in Tagalog. He’d talk back to them in Vietnamese. Granted, he doesn’t look Vietnamese to me, either. He looks like an islander.
By soulofmischief 2026-02-194:101 reply I have an Indian friend who often gets mistaken for Hispanic in the Southern US.
By LouisSayers 2026-02-199:05 I'm from NZ (mostly european but part Maori heritage) and have had people talk to me in foreign languages, ask me in the supermarket if I'm from Spain (weird), give me random discounts etc.
I also get "you look/feel so familiar" a lot.
Happy to know I'd fit in in a number of places haha
By butlike 2026-02-1916:02 I got 11/18 on architechture, and like 4/18 on food. Thought those would be reversed!
