[Ronin4hire]

I was debating with my Chinese friend who thinks that he can tell which country an Asian comes from (from physical appearance alone) because apparently he's Asian and notices the subtle differences that us White folk can't pick up on.

I completely disagreed with him and went as far as to call bullsh-t so we got into this (friendly) argument over it.

There is NO WAY that they can tell each other apart purely on physical appearance (of course I'm not talking individually). What I mean is that there is no way to distinguish a Korean from a Chinese from a Japanese. The best anyone can do (even amongst East Asians themselves) is narrow it down to a group of countries or region within Asia, but that's about it. (For example I could guess from complexion that someone is from Thailand/Phillipines/Cambodia etc rather than Japan/Korea/China etc... but I suppose even that isn't foolproof).

I mean think about it... White people (I'm white) can't distinguish visually as to whether someone is Swedish, French, German, Scottish, English etc. How is it possible for Japanese to be able to tell Koreans, Chinese apart from looks alone?

I pretty much told my friend that he was profiling according to stereotypes rather than actually noticing anything different.

What do you think? Am I right?