Currently, the most typical face on the planet...

**Alabama** · 03-03-2011, 07:44 PM

is that of a 28-year-old Han Chinese man. There are 9 million of them.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_theloo...-on-the-planet

**harriet** · 03-03-2011, 07:48 PM

Are Chinese people really as homogeneous as we think? I'm sure experiments have proven people think other ethnicities look more similar than they actually do.

If it's a composite of many different Chinese men, they may as well have made a composite of men from diverse regions and called it the "typical face".

**Agrippa** · 03-03-2011, 07:53 PM

Originally Posted by harriet

Are Chinese people really as homogeneous as we think? I'm sure experiments have proven people think other ethnicities look more similar than they actually do.

If it's a composite of many different Chinese men, they may as well have made a composite of men from diverse regions and called it the "typical face".

The question is always compared to whom and in which respects?

F.e. if it is about hair color, nobody is as diverse as Europeans.

The Chinese are also pretty homogeneous racially in certain other respects, but they still show significant differences typologically, if comparing f.e. a North Sinid with a Palaemongolid or Tungid with South Sinid, the differences are in certain respects significantly bigger than between most Europeans...

**Alabama** · 03-03-2011, 07:57 PM

Originally Posted by harriet

Are Chinese people really as homogeneous as we think? I'm sure experiments have proven people think other ethnicities look more similar than they actually do.

If it's a composite of many different Chinese men, they may as well have made a composite of men from diverse regions and called it the "typical face".

The article states that the researchers made this composite picture using the faces of 190,000 faces of 28yr-old Han Chinese men; so this face represents the median, rather than the mean.

**harriet** · 03-03-2011, 08:00 PM

Originally Posted by Alabama

The article states that the researchers made this composite picture using the faces of 190,000 faces of 28yr-old Han Chinese men; so this face represents the median, rather than the mean.

So this is the most typical face in China but not worldwide..

**Alabama** · 03-03-2011, 08:06 PM

Originally Posted by harriet

So this is the most typical face in China but not worldwide..

Perhaps I should have stated this face represents the mean/average/composite of the most typical face on the planet, which is that of a 28yr-old Han Chinese male (there are 9 million of these individuals worldwide, and the researchers at National Geographic magazine created this composite face using 190,000 pics of such individuals).

A worldwide composite pic would look very different.

**harriet** · 03-03-2011, 08:08 PM

Originally Posted by Alabama

Perhaps I should have stated this face represents the mean/average/composite of the most typical face on the planet, which is that of a 28yr-old Han Chinese male (there are 9 million of these individuals worldwide, and the researchers at National Geographic magazine created this composite face using 190,000 pics of such individuals).

A worldwide composite pic would look very different.

I understand what you mean but I think it's a mistake to suggest that all Han Chinese males have the same or even similar faces.

**Alabama** · 03-03-2011, 08:12 PM

Originally Posted by harriet

I understand what you mean but I think it's a mistake to suggest that all Han Chinese males have the same or even similar faces.

It's a composite created to represent the world's most common face today, nothing more is suggested.

**harriet** · 03-03-2011, 08:14 PM

Originally Posted by Alabama

It's a composite created to represent the world's most common face today, nothing more is suggested.

I know - that's what I meant. If it had been the most commonly-appearing face, it would have been the world's commonest face. A composite would have made sense if it was a worldwide sample.

**Oreka Bailoak** · 03-03-2011, 08:17 PM

Are Chinese people really as homogeneous as we think?

I don't think they are as homogeneous as you might think. Many northern Chinese don't like southern Chinese. One of my good Northern Chinese friends told me he doesn't like Southern China because of the harsh language (Cantonese spoken in Guangdong Provence, Guangxi, Hong Kong) and the more uncivilized way the people behave in the south (rude social conversations and loud and obnoxious attitudes compared to most Mandarin speakers) and he thinks they look very foreign compared to area his family is from. I'm sure this is probably just bias to a large extent but it does highlight that noticeable differences do exist within Han Chinese groups.

Concerning genetics...

Moreover, a study by the Chinese Academy of Sciences into the gene frequency data of Han subpopulations and ethnic minorities in China, showed that Han subpopulations in different regions are also genetically close to the local ethnic minorities, and it means that in many cases blood of ethnic minorities has mixed into Han, while at the same time, blood of Han also has mixed into the local ethnicities.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18726285
^ Keep in mind that almost 10% of Chinese are not Han. So when you also account for the Han that are influenced by non-Han ethnicities it is probably much greater diversity within the Han group.

A recent, and to date the most extensive, genome-wide association study of the Han population shows that little geographic-genetic dispersion from north to south has occurred.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science...86f5be748917d0
^some of those charts are amazing.

Most Han are related to some degree with the exception of the Pinghua branch.

http://www.nature.com/jhg/journal/v5...hg200837a.html