[noodle]

I think saying that you can tell is slightly wrong. You should probably word it as, I can "sometimes" tell. Because lets face it, even if you put a group of japanese people together, sometimes you'll think they look japanese and sometimes you'll think, oh wait, they look slightly different, i wonder if they are ALL actually japanese.

I have to help asian (mainly japanese and chinese) students everyday in my university. I can understand the slight subtle difference that you guys are talking about, but sometimes if not most times, it's just impossibly hard to tell from physical/fashion apearences. In fact, from fashion it's especially hard, because young chinese/japanese adults seem to have very similar fashion these days.

But, i have to say one funny difference i've noticed between chinese and japanese. I sometimes know if someone is japanese by the technology (more of money) that he/she has. I seem to notice that japanese students seem to be rather wealthy and are never worried about using daddy's credit card!! But of course, this is just the students i've been working with!