Okay so this is something that's been bothering me for a long time.
I am full-blooded Chinese. My mother is from Xi'an, which is on the southern side of northern, and my father is from Hubei, which is on the northern side of southern. Both of them are, as far as I'm aware, pure Han, the ninety-something-percent ethnic majority of China. My mother's family is of intellectual class stock--the historical equivalent of upper class/nobility; my father's family either agricultural or working class--middle or lower class--I'm not entirely certain which because he doesn't talk about family history as much as my mother does. Anyway, all of that is mostly for context.
My eyes, at normal resting position (give-or-take insomniac eyebags), look like this:
And as wide as they'll open right now, they look like this:
Both of these images were taken within the past hour or so and within a minute of each other, unedited, from as close to the same angle and distance as I could manage. The second one is a little lighter because of the variable overcast outside and also photobooth's native lighting auto-correction algorithms. I generally do not wear any makeup at all, but especially not eye makeup as the skin around my eyes is incredibly sensitive and tends to break out in rashes at the slightest provocation. Mm, what else? I am twenty-one, female, 5'3", usually somewhere in the range of 110-120lbs (I'm not sure right now and I don't have a scale handy to check). I was born and have lived my entire life in the United States.
That said! Are my eyes significantly smaller than most Caucasians'? At resting position, I don't know. I'm not even entirely certain how "average" or "typical" I am among other east Asians in that respect. At widest opening? ...probably. I certainly can't do this, where there's sclera visible all around the iris, and I have no idea how common that is among Caucasians or other races but I'm fairly certain it's not that common among east Asians.
What's the difference between east Asian and Caucasian eyes?
A cautionary note! These are generalizations. They're not true of every individual. But I think mostly two things: firstly, that the muscles that operate the eyelid are anchored lower on east Asian eyes. This produces the epicanthic fold--the most salient visible difference between east Asian and Caucasian eyes. Secondly, there tends to be less surrounding elevation--lower nose bridges, lower brow ridges*. This doesn't actually do much to change the objective shape of the eye itself, but it does have some subtle but significant perceptual effects.
* Actually--this is where the terms "lowbrow" and "highbrow" came from--at some point, some intrepid post-Copernican European scientist noticed that European adult males, especially Greeks, have almost the most prominent eyebrows out of any human group, and reasoned that this must mean that high brows indicate greater capacity for reason. However, I'm certainly not going to quibble over the use of "lowbrow" or "highbrow" as being racist because the etymology has become so obscure that it hardly means the same thing anymore.
Like, this is what my eyes look like from almost-profile:
I say "almost" because it's actually turned a little bit towards the viewer. The black bits on the edge are my opposite eyelashes/eyebrow. I think I'm even flatter-faced than average; most east Asians actually, you know, have a nose bridge, period.
Anyway. I have a little bit of what's referred to in Chinese as double-eyelid--you can see a bit of the lower edge of the eyelid underneath the top fold. This is actually slightly more common than single-eyelid--where you can only see a single unbroken surface. I also have a fairly average or at least not-remarkable-enough-for-special-terminology eye-shape.
From what I can tell, the "stereotypical" eye shape in Western media for east Asian eyes seems to be roughly analogous to something that in Chinese is called danfeng eyes--literally "red phoenix" eyes--which is, mmm. Usually single-eyelid, although that may be a later change in the terminology because the "dan" meaning "crimson" here sounds exactly the same as "dan" meaning "single". Otherwise, they're supposed to be long and elegant--though not necessarily narrow, unlike the western stereotype--and curve gently upwards on the outer edges. From what I can tell, these were historically a beauty standard, though I don't know if they still are given western influence on beauty standards today. I think "phoenix eyes" was one of the classical markers of beauty in ancient China along with "cloud-like hair" and "moon-like face" and all them, but don't quote me on that. The mytho-historical general Zhang Fei was said to have danfeng eyes. My cousin also has them, and he's apparently frighteningly popular with girls, though he lives in the US too so who knows. They're actually not that common overall, though. I think probably part of the reason why there's so much bias towards it in the West, though, is because it's so overrepresented in classical art.
So, what's the point of all this? IDK. I'm certainly heartily sick of hearing "Asians have tiny eyes"--like, one time a good friend of mine said to me, "your eyes look like slits", and I had a split second of knee-jerk emotional reaction to that before I realized that he meant "it's finals season and you look like you haven't slept for three days". It's a sensitive issue! But I'm also a little tired of the incessant defense against it--by nice people, well-meaning and aware people, who nevertheless sometimes sound like they're insisting that there's no difference between east Asian and European eyes, and. There are certainly differences! It's just. I don't know.
MY FEELINGS, THEY ARE SO COMPLICATED.
This entry was originally posted at dreamwidth.
My eyes, at normal resting position (give-or-take insomniac eyebags), look like this:
And as wide as they'll open right now, they look like this:
Both of these images were taken within the past hour or so and within a minute of each other, unedited, from as close to the same angle and distance as I could manage. The second one is a little lighter because of the variable overcast outside and also photobooth's native lighting auto-correction algorithms. I generally do not wear any makeup at all, but especially not eye makeup as the skin around my eyes is incredibly sensitive and tends to break out in rashes at the slightest provocation. Mm, what else? I am twenty-one, female, 5'3", usually somewhere in the range of 110-120lbs (I'm not sure right now and I don't have a scale handy to check). I was born and have lived my entire life in the United States.
That said! Are my eyes significantly smaller than most Caucasians'? At resting position, I don't know. I'm not even entirely certain how "average" or "typical" I am among other east Asians in that respect. At widest opening? ...probably. I certainly can't do this, where there's sclera visible all around the iris, and I have no idea how common that is among Caucasians or other races but I'm fairly certain it's not that common among east Asians.
What's the difference between east Asian and Caucasian eyes?
A cautionary note! These are generalizations. They're not true of every individual. But I think mostly two things: firstly, that the muscles that operate the eyelid are anchored lower on east Asian eyes. This produces the epicanthic fold--the most salient visible difference between east Asian and Caucasian eyes. Secondly, there tends to be less surrounding elevation--lower nose bridges, lower brow ridges*. This doesn't actually do much to change the objective shape of the eye itself, but it does have some subtle but significant perceptual effects.
* Actually--this is where the terms "lowbrow" and "highbrow" came from--at some point, some intrepid post-Copernican European scientist noticed that European adult males, especially Greeks, have almost the most prominent eyebrows out of any human group, and reasoned that this must mean that high brows indicate greater capacity for reason. However, I'm certainly not going to quibble over the use of "lowbrow" or "highbrow" as being racist because the etymology has become so obscure that it hardly means the same thing anymore.
Like, this is what my eyes look like from almost-profile:
I say "almost" because it's actually turned a little bit towards the viewer. The black bits on the edge are my opposite eyelashes/eyebrow. I think I'm even flatter-faced than average; most east Asians actually, you know, have a nose bridge, period.
Anyway. I have a little bit of what's referred to in Chinese as double-eyelid--you can see a bit of the lower edge of the eyelid underneath the top fold. This is actually slightly more common than single-eyelid--where you can only see a single unbroken surface. I also have a fairly average or at least not-remarkable-enough-for-special-terminology eye-shape.
From what I can tell, the "stereotypical" eye shape in Western media for east Asian eyes seems to be roughly analogous to something that in Chinese is called danfeng eyes--literally "red phoenix" eyes--which is, mmm. Usually single-eyelid, although that may be a later change in the terminology because the "dan" meaning "crimson" here sounds exactly the same as "dan" meaning "single". Otherwise, they're supposed to be long and elegant--though not necessarily narrow, unlike the western stereotype--and curve gently upwards on the outer edges. From what I can tell, these were historically a beauty standard, though I don't know if they still are given western influence on beauty standards today. I think "phoenix eyes" was one of the classical markers of beauty in ancient China along with "cloud-like hair" and "moon-like face" and all them, but don't quote me on that. The mytho-historical general Zhang Fei was said to have danfeng eyes. My cousin also has them, and he's apparently frighteningly popular with girls, though he lives in the US too so who knows. They're actually not that common overall, though. I think probably part of the reason why there's so much bias towards it in the West, though, is because it's so overrepresented in classical art.
So, what's the point of all this? IDK. I'm certainly heartily sick of hearing "Asians have tiny eyes"--like, one time a good friend of mine said to me, "your eyes look like slits", and I had a split second of knee-jerk emotional reaction to that before I realized that he meant "it's finals season and you look like you haven't slept for three days". It's a sensitive issue! But I'm also a little tired of the incessant defense against it--by nice people, well-meaning and aware people, who nevertheless sometimes sound like they're insisting that there's no difference between east Asian and European eyes, and. There are certainly differences! It's just. I don't know.
MY FEELINGS, THEY ARE SO COMPLICATED.
This entry was originally posted at dreamwidth.