She is supposedly of pure Chinese descent, except that she is fair, has light brown eyes, dark-brown hair, and distinctively European bone structure. Throughout her life, people take her for a Slav, Israeli, or Greek, and etc. In fact, those genes are so prevalent that even I am constantly mistaken as bi-racial when I am not.

Strangely, all of my mother's siblings look like typical Han Chinese, as does her parents and grand-parents. Why and how often do these genetic anomalies occur? Or is it more likely that she was adopted?

Pictures will help since there are so many "expert ethnic analyzer" people in here

wtihout her pictures, one can not answer your question.

I left my scanner and photographs at home (I am at college).

This is the close-up of the only picture of her I found online (she is reading), and it is insufficient. But oh, well.



(I think she looks good for fifty. )

she doesnt look eropean at all,she looks more like se asian

"se asian"? As in Southeast Asian? I haven't thought about that. I will ask her if her family was once residing that area. I wish I had a clearer, coloured photograph. She still looks nothing like anyone in her family. I wish I had their pictures to compare with.

Since you guys seem like experts, which line of Chinese do you think my father comes from?

He is Manchurian, I think. What do think, can you tell?

Definitely she looks younger than she is. And hardly East Asian. More kind of universal look.

Forgive me, but how can an Asian person look "universal"? Isn't that an oxymoron?

I mean, from her looks, she could come from many places.

They both look Chinese to me.

How do you look owl? She's hard to tell, she looks eurasian.

And here is the collegel i.d. of the unpleasant creature my parents made:

+ =

People say I look more like mum. I think I look like a convict, or one of those laborer women with rolled-up sleeves on communist propaganda posters.

Beautiful strong features! but this only comments coming from a teen.

You share same nose and lips.

Father looks chinese, you look chinese but mother is a hard call. Does she have similar eyes as you two?

Father looks northern chinese... Beijing?

My mother has rounder, deeper set eyes than both my fathers' and mine combined, and they are light brown.

My father's family is originally from the area near Korea's border. They were Manchurian.

I just phoned my mother and found out that I have an uncle who was born with red hair and hazel eyes. His beard is still red. What is going on here?

Will someone teach me something about recessive genes?

I'm cantonese, have red beard, well not a whole one, but have no red hair (excluding some part of the beard that is). By the way, everyone looks like a convit in I.D. photo.

Now let me try to answer your question. By the word "Chinese", you are appling it in a very board sense. They were many civlizations and ethnicities existed within the bounary of China today, and with years and years of mingling, it is very hard to find a person who is, I'm just making up a number here, 70% "Chinese" (in a narrow sense) in blood. Since I'm a Cantonese, I can call myself a Han Chinese with no problem but I doubt that's my "true" identity. My genetic information can come from the following ways: 1.as a native in Southern China, which the ancient China is called Yue; 2. Northern Han Chinese migrated to Southern China during Wei-Jin time or other periods and commingled with the natives; 3. Northern Chinese; 4. whatever Chinese at the time mixed with Arabic merchants. I'm just naming a few possiblilties here and each or a mix of them is possible.

So dn't be suprised if you or your family members look a little bit different, because we all are deep inside. Beside there is only 0.1% different in the human DNA that distinguishes us from other ethnicities, so don't be suprised if you share some similar features with other ethnic groups.

I cannot tell you anything about recessive gene, for I got my information from Metal Gear Solid. Blond hair is recessive though. Another thing that I learned from the game is that it is not the gene that shapes your identity but your own determination.

Your mother looks south Chinese (I live near a bunch of Fujianese people and many of them have those features) your dad doesn't look Chinese at all. I've never seen a Chinese with such narrow eyes as him, he looks Korean or Manchurian.

Owl, I wouldn't be so hard on yourself. I doubt that picture of you is your best and it wasn't that bad anyway.

Genetics is a strange and unpredictable thing. Like you'll get children that are shorter than both their parents, or ones that are considerably taller. It can apply to anything, including skin-colour and bone structure.

My mum also looks "different" from most Brits. Her skin is quite tanned-looking and goes a very deep shade of tan when she's been out in the sun, so she looks like she's from the Med (she has dark hair as well). When she was younger and went on holiday to Greece, lots of young men kept trying to talk to her in Greek because they thought she was a local! Yet our family has no ancestors from outside of the British Isles.

These things just happen.

your mother looks burmese.

Owl your mom looks definitely Eurasian. I have a young cousin who was born with straight up blonde hair, and his little brother was a red head with freckles. They both have honey colored eyes and are freckly. If you're northern then it's possible that you have nomadic blood in you. Nomads carried genes from various Caucasian stocks they conquered in the west.

This girl is actually 100% Mongolian with two very Mongolian looking parents.

It happens.

What looks Eurasian about her? She looks any average Cantonese I see on the street and definitely doesn't look like she has any nomadic ancestry. This is how nomads to the north of China such as Mongol, Manchu look.


The woman in we're discussing looks much more like these average Chinese.

no she doesn't. she looks se asian. infact she looks like this burmese woman






and no,i wouldn't call that girl a 100% mongolian when clearly she doesn't look like your average mongolians. just face it,mongolia is right next to russia,it is logical to say that,one of her ancestor was a russian. in realty,the nomadic mongolians rather look the most asiatic in physical features like,small eyelids,flatter face,stocky build,thick straight hair,less body hair. those are not traits of caocassian.

I think the reason why people think her mom looks Southeast Asian or Southern Chinese is the fact that she has big eye sockets since I see big eyes more in common in Southern Chinese populations than anything.

The reason why I said she looks kind of Eurasian is because I'm from Northeast China and I have some mixed Russian-Chinese relatives close to the border. There are quite a lot of Russian-Chinese mixed people in Harbin in Heilongjiang and I've met some of them. They kind of have that look. Taller nose bridge, deeper eyesockets, narrower face, which isn't that common among Northern Chinese who tend to have more of a flat and broad faced look with small eyes. But Southerners in China on average seem to have bigger eyes too so that could be why.

Mongols in Mongolia didn't really mix with Russians. A lot of them have mixed but they're usually the ones in Russia. Mongolia is a big mix anyways, it's a multitribal ethnic group. There are actually a lot of Mongols with blue eyes and blonde hair, not just a few. There are some in my dad's hometown in Inner Mongolia. Looks like that girl I posted isn't really one in a million but I doubt it's due to mixing with Russians. Most likely Persians, Arabs, and Ossetian, Armenian, Georgeans and other Caucasian groups a couple of hundred years ago which can be the reason why random Mongolian couples pop out a blue eyed baby once in a while.

Oh yeah, DearCoolZ, just so you know, Mongols on average have the highest frequency of curly hair within the population. Trust me

not really,the tibetans are,tho.
suren: you got msn or qq? if so,pm me.

sorry no msn or qq. i use aim.

i see,aim is outdated,no extra features at all

I'm a traditional girl. No need for fancy buttons or video cameras. If it gets my message through, I'm good. If you must express your thoughts with me, you can email me. I do have ICQ which I rarely use, however.

Examples? I've seen Chinese and SEA with curly hair, but never a Mongol.

There are some people who has curled hair among Mongols.

Pictures i found in Mongolblogs

OH STOP!! You're a beautiful young woman! A convict... You should see my driver's license! Ha ha ha.

I had dated a Japanese man, but he was told he had some Mongolian in his heritage... he had light gray eyes and very curly hair. Highly unusual for Japanese, I thought. Perhaps do you have family photos from grandparents and great-grandparents and their siblings? Maybe you can trace some of your mother's traits back to them and where they came from.

Brown eyes are always the dominant gene... but blue is recessive. However, shades of brown are pretty difficult to figure out. I'm sorry I'm of no help, but if I find out something, I'll post it.

Kimchee

All I know is that you need to have two recessive genes, one from your father and one for your mother to have the recessive trait. For example, if "B" is Brown Eyes and "b" is Blue Eyes... the graph goes like this:

BB Bb
bB bb

BB, both parents have the dominant Brown Eye gene, so baby is born with Brown Eyes;
Bb, bB, one parent has the recessive gene... but since Brown Eyes are dominant, these
babies will also have Brown Eyes...
but, if they marry someone else with the Bb combination,
there's a 25% chance that their baby will be "bb" with blue eyes.

Does this make sense? The same goes for hair color, near sightedness, etc, etc, etc. You can be sure that if you try to graph out all of a person's traits, it will be quite complicated!!

Kimchee

You are right about Mongols have dominant asiatic in physical features.
But there is fact that some blondes born in mongol parents. Mongols mixed a lot. Gene things makes some surprise.

I'm seeing these pictures of fair-haired Mongols for the first time... and I swear now more than ever that there is Asian blood in MY family on the Polish side... blonde hair, blue eyes, high cheek bones, almond shaped eyes... they look like the little girl in Zorigo's picture. Wow.

Kimchee

Hello,
This may be a classic example of Genetic drift/diffusion. In order to answer the original forumer’s question it is best first to isolate the family’s lineage to understand the differences in attributes resulted. Besides, most of the discussions here only focus on the superficial aspects of human in general thus can be determine by diets, environment and life style (makeup, plastic surgery, etc). In addition, in a natural environment setting genes will have a tendency to mutate. They will need to change to accommodate the ever-changing rhythm of life. This is the core purpose of evolution. Everyone must remember that we live in a dynamic world and not a static one. Everything (including DNA) has to change to ‘fit’ in with their surroundings (environment, society, culture, etc.).

No, I don't have pictures of older relatives on hand. I have also met a Japanese man with gray-blue eyes. He was older, so maybe it was his cataracts?



Unfortunately, mutations are only observable on a macro-evolutionary scale. I do not think an experiment on genetic drift in modern humans can be conducted unless it is done over a timespan of over 10,000 years. Consequently, I do not look more "American" than my forebearers because I was born and raised there. Although, I do believe that our species in the future will generally look more homogenous --that is, racially ambiguous, due to globalism.

Freckles?

Although I have to admit she does resemble somewhat with the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize recipient, Aung San Suu Kyi of Myanmar (Burma).

Also, I think people are jumping to conclusions about my mother because I did not provide an adequate picture. Obviously, a person who is aging, looking down, in black & white looks very different than if he/she was not. If I had provided a more representational photograph of my mother, especially when she was younger, I assure you that your responses will differ.

It is funny though, how randomly these recessive traits manifest, how they mix-and-match. A good example is my younger brother, who has dark brown hair, freckles, and is more western-looking than I, but has my father's square face. Unlike me, who looks entirely Chinese, suffers from dark under-eye circles, skin that burns easily, and have my mother's long face.
my dad: myself: my brother:

Somehow, this girl resembles my brother:

To owlfolk,

Actually, when I say mutation I do not mean on a macro scale alone. However, it would be certainly rare to see evolution occurring by mutation alone. Mutation rates for any given trait are quite low in a small population particularly but not in a big population. In larger populations, such as those in China, mutations might be observed more often (by chance) than not but will still have very little impact on shifting allele frequencies. However, when mutation is coupled with natural selection, evolutionary changes are quite possible in any time frame. An example are eye and hair color.
If she (your mother) is indeed displaying these Caucasian characteristics then the other possible reason may be due to ‘Gene flow’ otherwise known as 'Migration' - There has been a considerable population movement throughout human history, and much of this migration has occurred within the last 500 years. The migration and mixing of peoples due to trade or warfare increases the genetic exchange rates, and populations who were isolated in the past now undergone a considerable change in gene frequencies thus resulting in most population to be more heterogeneous. However, I do concurred with your latter citing, ‘our species in the future will generally look more homogenous…” This is consistent with hominid evolution since the first dispersal of our genus, and helps explain why speciation has not occurred in human evolution for at least the last million years. In your family’s case I am not surprise. Hey, maybe you can now start a family tree archive collection if you have not already done so.

Well owlfolk, like I said, it just happens. Tons of people in Northeast China and Inner Mongolia and Western Province of China look quite racially ambiguous. Your little bro looks just like a 1/2 Chinese 1/2 white kid. Such features can be due to ancient migrations a few centuries back, hence why you get random oh say Mongolian families with everyone looking very Mongolia randomly having a blonde hair blue eyed kid.

I'll show you some examples.

This is a family friend. His siblings and parents and grandparents all have near black hair and eyes. Lighting isn't good, but his eyes are grey-blue and it says "blue" for eyes on his drivers license lol.

A Kazakh man. Full Asian features yet the eyes...


You'll find tons of little kids like this in Siberia and in Russia in general. But she is full Mongolian. Her relatives are all Mongolian looking with black hair and all.


The little girl in the woman's arms look exactly like my little cousin. She also has blonde hair and pinkish fair skin as her only my cousin is very freckly.


So you see, it happens!

This woman is also full Chinese with parents black hair and eyes. Her sister also has green eyes.

here's a blonde lao guy. i think he's albino.

LOL... you guys are funny. Get over it please. We are Chinese people and Chinese people are not a homogeneous race like the koreans or Japanese. This is the fact. I am a southern chinese and to be particular; mix of teochew(paternal) and hakka(maternal). Know wat? my mum and aunt don't look chinese at all because of thier distinctive jaw bones, high cheeks, high nose bridge and big round eyes. Same goes to my maternal great granny although none of my grannies have these features. It was later found out that my mum's ancestors include turkish blood! not surprising at all, considering it was inherited since the Tang Dynasty. And how do i look like? lol, i look pure east asian, mates, and the only thing i inherited from my maternal side is the jaw bones n cheeks.
Wat is my point here? Chinese people are not pure. Thats it. Get over it n have a pint for celebrating globalization. Cheers, mate!

Um... 95% of Chinese have those features. A person who "don't look Chinese at all" would have swept-back cheeks and a flat nose.

But most East Asians have a more flat nose than Central Asians.

Actually I never seen a Korean look like her father, and Manchurians are not necessarily narrow eyes as well as 'Han Chinese'. I've really seen various people who have ether narrow eyes or not. So I think this feature is not the case to define an ethnicity.

Those six men in the picture above must be the hostage who were kidnapped in Iraq, and all of them are from FuJian province of China.

But it's MUCH more common among Koreans and Manchu's then Chinese, who usually have round eyes.

I don't think you look like a convict at all; I think you're stunning in that picture!

This people looks more like Kazakh or Uzbeks (in my opinion).