Differences Between Japanese, Chinese, Korean, and American High School Students
The above video clip shows Fuji TV’s coverage of a news story about a survey that asked a variety of questions to high school students in Japan, China, Korea, and the United States. Mainichi’s English edition has a good summary article on the survey’s results, and I recommend it to those of you interested in such a topic, since I’ll be passing it over for something I found more interesting.
This post is about the Fuji TV news coverage of this story, specifically the artwork they use when presenting it:
In this screen capture of the survey results the question [Do you check the safety of food products when shopping?], we are given a close-up of the artist’s representation of a Chinese high school student. Rather than having large eyes like his Japanese counterpart, the Chinese student has slit lines for eyes. The Korean student’s eyes seem a little bit smaller than those of the Japanese student, but his eyes at least have pupils. In contrast, the American student’s eyes are about the same size as those of the Japanese student.
What, dear readers, are we to make of this?
Update: Matt Thorn’s “The Face of the Other” provides some related information on manga portrayals of non-Japanese characters. [hat tip to Ryry]
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“What, dear readers, are we to make of this?”
Um, that some people are more interested in trying to find racist conspiracy theories in cartoon characters than they are in thinking about the ramifications of the fact that 42 percent of Chinese high school students are concerned about the safety of their food?
I mean, that’s pretty frightening when you realize that high school students are unbalanced bags of raging hormones and are generally only concerned with sleeping, the opposite sex, goofing off, the opposite sex, stuffing their faces, the opposite sex, yakking, the opposite sex, sex and the opposite sex. And not necessarily in anything close to that order.
But in China, the kids are concerned about whether their food is safe. Not surprising, I lived there for about 10 months, and it was a joy coming to Japan and not having to worry about whether there were rocks in your rice. I mean, anyplace that can’t figure out how to keep small stones out of the rice in restaurants and dining halls is not likely to be too fussy about unseen things like chemicals and bacteria.
C’mon James, we know you’re Chinese, but lift your game. Stop troll-baiting.
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Bonesdog:
The survey’s results are indeed interesting, and I’d love to see readers who want to discuss the survey to leave comments about it. I can’t really say that I’m genuinely surprised that high schoolers living in a third world country are more concerned about food safety than those living in first world nations, though.
I was planning on just doing a post about the survey, but once I saw the politically incorrect image used in the news broadcast, I couldn’t help but test the reactions of this site’s readership. I guess it could be considered ‘troll-baiting,’ in which case I’ll attempt to moderate some of the most extreme and ugly comments.
[I appreciate your comments, as well as those by some of the other most vocal readers, but I must declare that some recent discussions have been getting far too personal among you guys. Try to be more civil when replying to comments that you regard as stupid...]
“I can’t really say that I’m genuinely surprised that high schoolers living in a third world country are more concerned about food safety than those living in first world nations, though.”
Perhaps, but the irony of having Chinese more concerned about food safety than Japanese, after the whole Gyoza thing with the Chinese press going everywhere from “it’s a Japanese plot to make China look bad” to “Japanese are too weak (and thus can’t handle a little pesticide in their food)” – I mean that is just too rich.
“Politically incorrect image” – yeah, well, I have seen plenty of Japanese cartoons depicting Japanese where the character has little slits for eyes. And I have also seen “Korean” and “Chinese” characters with the same big round eyes (or bigger and rounder!) as the “Japanese” characters.
Look – it’s a news graphic. That means it has to be simple and clear and convey information at a glance. Now, we’ve got three groups lumped together on one side of the screen, and all three groups are asian, with black hair and eyes, not a lot of marked, easily distinguishable physical differences…
Japanese kid in Kimono, Korean girl in cheongsam, Chinese girl in a China dress with Princess Leia buns on the side of her head? That would be even more stereotypical, not to mention the fact the story is about high school kids…
Chinese boy in a Mao jacket waving a little red book? Nope, too last week, younger people wouldn’t get the reference…
So what now? Shall we discuss the hidden meaning behind the order of the colors in TV test patterns? And whatever happened to the Native American chieftain who used to appear in the middle?
Political correctness will be the death of us all, as everyone exercises their right to be offended.
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Oh and James, you seem to have missed that the Chinese student is physically more than twice as large as any of the other three students. What shall we make of that? That Japanese view Chinese as huge, brutish freaks of nature with squinty eyes and tidy haircuts? Or that they view themselves, Koreans and Americans as weak puny little girly-men when compared to the awesome pumped-up-ness of Chinese manly-men? Hmmm?
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A Chinese friend of mine used the stomach weakness line just last week. Frankly, I’ve posted so much about unsafe Chinese products lately that bores myself, and probably quite a few readers of the site, to see posts about it every single day. I can only beat a dead horse so much…
Yeah, it’s a difficult situation for the artist. If he had given them stereotypical national costumes/cultural symbols, I probably wouldn’t have even noticed anything odd about the graphic. The graphic used in the newscast had an impact because it shows physical racial differences between the eyes of Japanese people and Chinese people.
The Chinese guy is the same size as the others earlier in the video clip, and is only enlarged when they are emphasizing the Chinese survey results. I picked a screen capture where his face was extra large so that Japan Probe’s elderly readers could easily make out his slanty eyes.
Correction to my own post: “we know you’re an American who apparently sometimes thinks you are Chinese…”
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AMEN. I mean so what Most Japanese Like manga and it depicts people with big eyes. And most chinese people I know versus Japanese friends of mine….have smaller eyes…so be it….damn poor Chinese food market.
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“What, dear readers, are we to make of this?”
Obviously that the evil Chinese person is squinting his eyes evilly as he evilly plans to add poison to the Japanese person’s food. In a very evil manner.
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LOL! Good one!
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Complete survey results here:
http://www1.odn.ne.jp/youth-study/reserch/index.html
Downloadable .pdf at the top, click on 高校生の消費に関する調査
One thing I see already: they list 1st, 2nd and 3rd year Japanese, Korean and Chinese students as equivalent to US 9th, 10th and 11th graders, when of course they should be equivalent to 10th, 11th and 12th graders. Personally I think they should have administered the survey to only the top three US grades to keep things consistent. US 9th graders are 3rd year middle-school students in the other three countries.
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If you actually open up the PDF file and read the damn thing Bones, you would see that 35% of respondents were Gr. 12s. So much for that theory, eh.
1. 高１ (米国： 9th) 33.6 20.4 33.8 50.3
2. 高２ (米国： 10th) 35.4 15.1 33.0 49.7
3. 高３ (米国： 11th) 31.0 29.3 33.2 0.0
(米国： 12th) – 35.2 – -
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*ahem* I did read the damn thing. The point I was trying to make is that for three out of four countries they were surveying 15 to 18 year-olds, and in one they were surveying 14 to 18 year-olds. For consistency’s sake and to get a more accurate result they should have skipped the US 9th graders and only surveyed 10th through 12th graders.
Plus by lining up Asian 1st through 3rd year HS students with US 9th through 11th graders, the percentages per grade/year in school get screwed up because what you are seeing is effectively three 16 year-olds being compared with a 15 year-old, instead of four 15 year-olds being compared with each other. And given the mental “walls” that exist between each grade in HS, this is probably much more significant than, say, comparing a 35 year-old with a 30 year-old.
That was my point.
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“What, dear readers, are we to make of this?”
That you are reading waaay too much into this.
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Look guys, I honestly think there is something to this. The American guy and Japanese guy are exactly the same–except for differences in hair color. I mean that is kind of scary. The fact of the matter is that since the Meiji period, Japanese artists have tried their best to portray Japanese people as more Caucasian like and less like their neighbors. It is amazing how many people I see in Japan with perms to make their hair straight or dyed hair. Contrastingly, Chinese people rarely dye their hair or get perms.
The portrayal of the Chinese boy in this video shocked me as it is characteristic of the traditional and stereotypical ways that Europeans portrayed Asians in their writings and drawings in the 1800’s.
To give you an idea of how scary this is: Imagine African Americans, wanting to distinguish themselves from Africans from Africa, by drawing pictures of Africans with big lips and large Afros while drawing African Americans with straight hair, long noses, and light skin.
(no racism intended as I am an African American but it is a decent parallel)
The program broadcasters could have simply showed actual pictures of students from each respected country as you know, in this modern day and age, we have access to the world wide web which contains a plethora of decent pictures of students of every nationality.
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> It is amazing how many people I see in Japan with perms to make their hair straight or dyed hair. Contrastingly, Chinese people rarely dye their hair or get perms.
Do you think the young people with dyed hair really want to look like Caucacians? Hilarious! The fashion is only the strategy of differenciation and you don’t have the right to determine the meaning in this floating world. Your racialist interpretation would be the theme of politico-cultural studies because I met a few white guys who said the same thing.
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Many people dye their hair blonde only to be different?
Why didn’t people do that during the Edo period?
Many of my Japanese friends have said that the reason people dye their hair is due to the concept of Akogare 憧れ (yearning)and emulation as opposed to a desire to be different.
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Some may think so, others not. Takeshi Kitano played the role of Zatoichi with blonde hair. How do you interpret this? I don’t know well.
In general, “yanki” guys love to dye their hair blonde, so in this case the fake blonde is a peculiar sign in the social context of Japan. It belongs to the deviative youth culture of the working class, which tends to love the extravaganza. Politically speaking, yanki guys are rather right-leaning. They are not white worshipper type.
Or you can find cosplayers with blonde hair, but in this bizarre subculture you can choose the blonde, the blue, the silver or the red hair as you like. In this case, I don’t know well what the blonde hair means.
As you notice, there are more people who dye their hair brown. I think for many people the black hair is a bit “heavy” and “serious”, so they want to make their hair “light”.
The dyed hair represents the lack of the “seriousness” the Japanese society demands. That’s because the school teachers and the conservatives hate it. For them, it’s the symbole of the disorder.
Anyway the sign has multiple meanings. That’s what I want to say.
Finally, I don’t deny the tradition of the West worshipping since Meiji era, but as you know, it is only one aspect of politico-cultural complex of this country.
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Dying the hair, aside from its rebellious nature (the same in the West, though the greater variety of natural shades there means that colours are even more exaggerated), and aside from such minor usages as cosplay, is not perhaps so much a desire to emulate the Caucasian look as a desire to look like the top movie stars and singers – who in this modern age are often white. In other words, the “white” is a sub-issue, and they really want to follow global fashion trends.
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I agree, Overthinker. I think that’s what Tom’s friends meant by “akogare”.
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Yes, definitely, but I think it needs to be a bit more clear just who that “akogare” is aimed at. As I see it, it goes like this: Japanese person sees hot Hollywood star with blonde hair, wants to have blonde hair, then by extension thinks that white people with blonde hair are cool as they already have that Hollywood look. Substitute hair colour or fashion trend as appropriate….
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Dying hair is a fashion trend. It is a beauty statement. Do White Americans go tanning just to look like Africans ? No. I’m Asian and I dye my hair at times. The reason is not because I want to look “white”, but because the hair color seems to enhanced and emphasized my face more.
What you said is also stereotyping those that dye their hair.
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Asian people have straighter hair than most Westerners, if anything they perm it to make it curly. Westerners dye their hair red to emulate red-haired people, however I doubt it’s because they want to be Scottish or Irish. They just like variety. Asian features are perhaps less various in the hair and eye department, so people who want to stand out in a group will obviously try to differentiate themselves somehow.
In short, clothes, hair, makeup, jewelry: cool
Cosmetic surgery: not cool.
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“It is amazing how many people I see in Japan with perms to make their hair straight or dyed hair.”
perms to make their hair straight? dont you mean curly?
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What’s more interesting is the fact that they didn’t go with the blond-haired, blue-eyed, big nosed caricature for the American. I am really getting sick to death of that one, as I encounter it almost daily at this point. It’s particularly offensive when I notice it in my JET Japanese language textbook!
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Yes, those caricatures make this one look rather Un-American! Anyway I’m Chinese and think this is no big deal at all. The Chinese and American are wearing T-Shirts while the Korean and Japanese are not, what can we make of that??
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美国和中国的学生们都不喜欢穿制服。
Americans and Chinese students don’t like to wear uniforms.
アメリカと中国の学生は制服があまり好きじゃないということ。
Americans and Chinese ain’t feelin them uniforms, ya heard.
Yeah, I guess it all depends on how you look at it.
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James, good to see you do some overthinking….
I too would look twice at this portrayal, and the gradation between Japan and China with Korea in the middle. The relative sizes are obviously due to the numbers. Having them wear traditional clothing would be a stereotype, but a cultural rather than racial stereotype.
Haven’t seen much vitriol on this site, but perhaps I missed it.
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http://www.matt-thorn.com/mangagaku/faceoftheother.html
Read this, and be quiet… James, you rabble rouser, you.
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That post is brilliant. It says exactly what I would want to say, far better than I could. A whole lot of people could benefit from reading this and, more importantly, thinking about what is being said. It is dead on the mark.
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Ryry, thanks for the link. I should probably clarify that I wasn’t arguing in the original post that Japanese people were depicting themselves as white – I was commenting on the use of what the article acknowledges as “stereotyped racial features” for non-Japanese Asians. In that article’s argument against Japanese people manga characters looking “white,” it acknowledges the common use of crude stereotypes as a method of helping Japanese readers distinguish between Japanese and non-Japanese characters. If things are as the article describes, why shouldn’t one still take issue with this lazy use of crude racial markings?
I actually emailed the dude pointing out some errors in his ideas, but never got a response, and considering his background, I doubt this guys intentions to see the matter in a fair light (Faculty of Manga? wtf?).
Anyway, I wasn’t really interested in this post and was scrolling down when I saw the picture, and I’d say it’s difficult not to notice it unless there exists some heavy bias. As a previous poster mentioned, the Japanese kid looks almost exactly the same as the American, sans the hair color. Ain’t got nothin’ to do with reading too much into it -_-
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Maybey you could share these errors in his thinking with us?
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Extremely well written article! thanks for the link.
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I came across this article once a while ago, and I also find it a good and well-written article IMO. I’m glad that someone linked to it because I wanted to post it too.
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I think it’s disgraceful that the Americans are represented by just one white guy, when they should be represented by 235 people of differing ethnicity to show the true racial mix in that country.
And I’m especially disgusted that none of them are female. Oh and that the Korean hasn’t had cosmetic surgery and that the American doesn’t have an enormous nose et cetera, et cetera…
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Everyone seems to be caught up in the debate over the animated character, but doesn’t anyone else think it’s strange that 17.5% of American high schoolers are checking food for safety?
I don’t think I’ve ever considered the safety of the food I eat in the US. I also don’t represent all American high schoolers, but what are they looking for? The only food scares I can remember are the E. coli outbreaks at fast food restaurants.
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And how exactly do you check food for safety? Unless it’s obviously rotting it’s gotta be kind of hard without a lab.
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I think it’s hilarious they skipped over talking about Koreans completely.
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It’s called wishful thinking.
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But chinese really have different eyes from japanese, is it really wrong to show it?
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They generally have bigger eyes (double-eyelids) than both the Japanese and Koreans (who have the smallest percentage of double eye-lids), therefore your post is really ironic.
Source: A lot of research. Too lazy to relocate them at the moment.
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