Do you ever get your ETHNICITY mistaken...?

[Guest Nerdy]

Happens all the time, but I don't sweat it. Kinda funny, actually.

[Guest fizzl3]

lol yes!

No one ever thinks I'm Vietnamese unless they work it out from my first and last name lol

I usually get Japanese or Filipino

It was funny because one guy thought I was Caucasian in my ballroom dancing class lol

[Guest 0908]

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[Guest ohdangchang]

im korean

but 80% of the time

people think im chinese.

they say i look chinese. i don't think i do.

my pics are in my sig.

you decide. lol

[Guest virvir111]

i just see all taiwanese/hongkong/mainland??? as just chinese.. lol cant tell the difference between the three. maybe cuz im neither of the three.. so i was shocked when i read the post about "do i look hong konger, mainland, or taiwanese"... i thought?? "what????? u can tell em apart?" very interesting.

n dang.. there are alot of chinese ppl in soompi.. i thought it was like 99% koreans

[Guest animeluverX]

bbyxenviouss- lol yea i'm an abc. i just wanted to say hker hahaha i'm lame like that.

[Guest naoto]

my friends from HK descent have a different face structure than my friends from Mainland china. but maybe it's just a coincidence? haha

people always talk about HK as if it was a different country so it used to confuse me a lot when i was younger. "are you from china?" "no. im from HK" "huh? o_o"

my hk medical school friend wondered about this and actually asked one of his professors. Now this is not a scientific finding or anything, might very well be false. It is because hong kong was isolated from the rest of china for ... let's say around 50 years (when they allowed people to come in in the 1900s but then blocked off immigration after the war). Once a certain group of people reproduce within themselves for that long apparently they turn out looking slightly different, or "distinct". North Koreans look slightly different from South Koreans because of this. Taiwanese look slightly different from Chinese sometimes too (but some are really mixed with local taiwanese blood so that's harder).

[Guest sunstori]

I am a ABC HK Chinese and I think HK people are SOMETIMES easier to distinguish because many are not as fair (skin colour) as mainlanders.

In many parts of mainland China, it snows and so people do not get tanned so easily. It is sunnier in Guang Dong regions... so people are more likely to be tanned? This is just my own observation.

Fashion plays a big role too. My HK friends all own some nifty jeans, black square frame glasses, converse and adidas bags.

And I own them too.. I never even realised. >_>

I think its just a development of taste since HK has not been governed by China for a while when it was under British colony.

So maybe its your skin colour or clothes.

[Guest HighSkies]

I get people thinking I'm japanese a lot when I'm chinese. D: The fact I don't look the least bit japanese...

A couple of people in my lifetime noticed is that my previous surname was vietnamese, which is wrong but they were closer in a way.

[Guest 0908]

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[Guest picturesque]

i got mistaken for a korean a few times. @@

but i'm a filo w/ a bit chi blood :]

[Guest xrockstar]

I got mistaken for being Korean, Japanese, and Chinese o_____O I'm really Viet. LMFAO.

[Guest ChouChou]

its the same for my bf

people think he's a hong kong born rather then uk born

its because he's really tan

and plus his style and he wears box glasses lol

and can speak proper fluent chinese [like not with an accent kinda thing]

everytime we go to hong kong they think he's a local and i'm a japanese tourist lol and he's showing me around @_@''

hm the differance is like

mainland china tend not to be dressed that great, and they're more pale and skinny

hong kong are super tanned, usually box glasses haha and like...big-T, skinny jeans kinda style

and taiwan guys look more metro...well..i'm just thinking about all the taiwan guy actors..they're more pale i think aswell

[Guest tmf_88]

hmmm...i think to say that mainland chinese don't dress well is a gross generalisation. I mean the sheer volume people means that there will be a lot more people who don't dress that well.

however in regards to the topic, i reckon that the 'are you from hk?' thing is predominantly because of the way you dress. I do agree that many people from HK dress differently to Mainland Chinese and Taiwanese people. In fact think these days the way Taiwanese and Mainland girls dress really similarly. i do agree with other members in that chinese from the north to look different to those from southern china.

[Guest LiSAA]

i think HK fobs have a good sense of fashion? maybe thats why they asked if you`re from HK?

[Guest maoxmao]

lol i get that [are you from hong kong?] alot..=v=

some people assume im from hongkong or guangzhou, and ask me how long i've been here...-v-

when they find out im vietnamese, their eyes goes O_O;;

yesyes, i don't look viet, but frankly, i AM...-v-

actually, im viet/chinese, so i'll say im mix. ^^

[Guest FooFooRuk]

its fashion wise or hairstyle wide. who cares!

[Guest ohdangchang]

Haha yu look Korean to me =]

lol thank you. haha

i don't know why people say i look chinese. lol

half our school is asian.. maybe that's why. loll

[Guest Justalilodreamer]

im a hker and most of us do look different from people from mainland china. Depending on what part of china you're from, some people there have a very traditional chinese look (its mostly the eyes and facial structure)...if they're really hkers, most of them dont look as traditional (facial structure/feature wise). and most of us do have double eyelids. I guess fashion could play a big part if you were raised there since hkers care alot about how appearance and looking presentable...its mostly about trends.

And the way they speak cantonese is also easy to distinguish where they're from =)

i personally have parents that are from hong kong, though i was born and raised in canada. i hang out with "hongers" and have a similar but not as radical mindset - that is, hong kong is a distinct place that shouldn't always be associated as China just because it is now a part of it. Hong Kong society, mindset, language are all different from maindland china. there's just always been a stereotype against china/chinese people that a number of hongkongresidents thought - that they are in some ways "better" then China, though it is changing. as always there ar the extremists and this case and there are the regular guys. hongkong was lucky when they were given more opportunities because of britain's influence thus their standard of living and such was better, for a time. many people wished that hong kong could stay as a british colony too ... and yea i don't mean to be racist or to insult anyone i'm just helping you understand why people distinguish "hong kong" out of all the other chinese places. sweatingbullets.gif hope that helped a little?

100% true (i think you're the first person who actually got everything right on the dot )

[Guest kuroimisa]

Dx

I'm from HK and most people don't know what I am because I don't speak in Cantonese like at all. I just prefer to speak in whatever language pops into mind first (95% of the time this is English, at random intervals it alternates between Cantonese, Mandarin and Japanese - I know, I'm weird).

Although a gross overgeneralisation, you can tell from the shoes HK people wear. More than often it's converse and if it's the leather type or some limited edition one it's more of a bonus to give it away. If you keep in touch with the shoe fashion enough there are these loafer flats going crazy in HK. Lots of HK girls I know somehow end up wearing those.

The hair also gives it away. Very rarely will HK girls have wavy hair - it's either those crazy tight curls or straightened dyed long hair. Again an overgeneralisation, but there was trend (of course now blown out).

It's kinda hard to explain, but there's a kind of attitude (I agree with the cocky comment one of the users said LOL even though I'm HK I agree with it because it's fairly true for a lot of the girls - and guys I know).

It really just depends on who you're talking to. Once a chinese woman asked if I was Korean, and when I talk to Koreans they ask if I'm Chinese. My two other HK friends both disagreed that I looked HK and said I look Taiwanese instead. Either way, they're all weird lol.