Wow...this thread is treading along dangerous lines.
Right well I suppose it's somewhat late to replying to this thread. Every single conclusion from right, left, and whichway has been made but I guess I'd like to add my two cents to this. From everything that i've read, this forum is all about being sterile and clean from personal bias and emotional yadiyada. I don't think that's at all possible when you're pitting two similar and yet diffferent looks against each other. Especially if you're in any way connected to these two groups. In fact, I think it's pretty chaotic to think that you could avoid all of that. I mean you'd think those hundred year long wars we had in ancient China is saying enough? lol.
To me anyways, this thread was insulting to the beauty of my southern Chinese family and friends. I've never before seen them as round faced, flat nosed, big lipped, sub Chinese people. And I don't plan to anytime soon. I also don't want to think of the northern Chinese as squinty eyed giants either. Differences of beauty ideals is always going to exist. There has been tests proven to show that a person is more likely going to choose people of a smiliar look as attractive. A difference of opinion is not what I have a problem with. The careful choosing of descriptive words for this obviously sensitive topic was not considered. And speaking from a girl who's grown up around southern Chinese people,
no I don't see a higher majority of round faces, big lips, and flat noses in comparison to northern Chinese.
If you want to try and maintain a sterile environment, nearly void of emotional bias and craziness, then what I would do if I were you is to avoid using vague words like round. What is round anyways? Is the skull an orange now? I would agree with that other poster who said to define it through skull shapes. Otherwise it's a beauty contest, in which case there would never be any point to make. As you can see, a great portion of this topic had underlying debates on who is prettier, covered up in really useless observations and pictures. By the way, those pictures are useless unless you take hundreds, maybe thousands more, of people in numerous northern and southern towns and then try to find some mathematical average for a face shape or etc. Maybe that way of doing it is completely wrong, but my point is bias can never be avoided. I don't pretend to major in any scientific field, but in those basic high school science courses I took we had something called a scientific method. I don't even think that method can be even used for what was trying to be proven here.
I guess there will just always be this north against south mentality. To define it would mean a deeper and greater definition for own selves, to put aside the western idea that all asians look alike. But in the process I think that it can also create more hate and regionalism. North and South share a country, a homeland. And it was both of us that have contributed to China and a "real Chinese person" looks like whoever lives in china. We might have differences, but you can't say that a japanese, korean, Mongolian, Turk, or etc is more similar to a northern chinese person than a southern chinese person. And I'm not talking genetics or anthropology here. Who knows. Like I said, this topic has created wars so whatever. Scientific analyzation is great if done properly and the biggest mistake in the world is to combat hate with hate.
Edited by jellybeans101, 14 June 2008 - 01:11 AM.
