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Post by burlives on Mar 27, 2005 18:22:28 GMT 7
Do we all look the same, or are they just short-sighted?
In class even boys do that slit-eyed finger trick looking at the board, but on the street it's always girls who call me "Trevor!" or "Joel!" and then have to giggle and admit to being in my class but thinking I was someone else.
I will admit to two things. First, I keep seeing students who I know are provinces away. Currently I am being haunted by a third-year English major in Extensive Reading. I'm sure she should be back in Nanyang doing first year all over again.
Secondly, I live upstairs from Luke Skywalker. Only, he's not married to Princess Leia and he's put on weight.
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Post by George61 on Mar 27, 2005 19:09:57 GMT 7
Burl,Burl, Burl....you're starting to sound like Lager.
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Post by burlives on Mar 27, 2005 20:41:36 GMT 7
I'm not kidding about the Luke Skywalker thing.
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Post by Raoul Duke on Mar 27, 2005 21:12:01 GMT 7
You should have included "Both" as a poll answer choice.
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Post by Mr Nobody on Mar 27, 2005 21:14:48 GMT 7
Are you serious about getting an answer?
I know one answer, which suits me. but i don't want to bore you with it if this is a humour thread. It isn't exciting, just a bunch of so called psych bits. Closer to yes, we are all the same.
Luke Skywalker should be fat by now, and anyway, he didn't marry Leia anyway, did he? Just watch the clumsy light sabre moves, and ignore him. He just doesnt impress me. Yoda, impressed, i am with, other, hand on.
something like that (I never did get the hang of it)
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Post by burlives on Mar 27, 2005 22:31:01 GMT 7
No, I'm not kidding. First time I met this guy I thought he was Kiefer Sutherland, but that was just Jedi misdirection.
And it got me to thinking. See, I do keep running into people who look just like students I've known. On the one hand I know the idea that growng up in a different culture among people of different physiognomy keys one to recognise different features of any face. It's like language -- if your language doesn't have something another language does, then the first time you hear it, you won't hear it, even when it is repeated. So I assume there's details of the asian face that I'm not sensitive to, and them likewise to my face. But on the other hand, I don't see Chinese as all looking the same. Everyone looks different.
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Post by George61 on Mar 27, 2005 23:58:44 GMT 7
They don't all look the same, but with 1.3 billion, how many subtle differences can there be. There are only so many facial features to change. Sooner or later there will be identical faces being made. I've seen many people who "remind me of so and so"
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gengrant
SuperBarfly! 
Hao, Bu Hao?
Posts: 1,818
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Post by gengrant on Mar 28, 2005 0:35:48 GMT 7
Leia and Luke were brother and sister, you pervs...it was Hans Solo who was Leia's man...  |
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Post by Mr Nobody on Mar 28, 2005 0:43:12 GMT 7
Basically, Burl, you already have it worked out.
1. There is apparently a built in pattern recognition thing for faces. It is such that it picks up anything resembling a face and "recognizes" a face, even in clouds moons etc. It doesn't work real well upside down, it even has an orientation. this is an actual physical structure within the brain, but i forget which bit.
2. The physiognomy part of it is cultural and is acquired. Within your own culture it picks out maybe 15 basic design differences, but within a different culture, this is reduced to about 5 or even less. Not that people look the same, but there is a recognition problem, since the groups have more individuals in them to distinguish, and so that part of the brain mixes people up. it isn't that the conscious part cannot tell people apart, but it needs more information and there is confusion, since it isn't getting it's usual amount of support from this mechanism. After a few years immersed in a new culture, people are supposed to be able to adjust and so can recnognize faces more easily.
So we look the same to them and they look the same to us until we adjust. They have more trouble since they are not immersed in a sea of white faces. The reverse is also true when they live in our countries.
it would be interesting to know if these two features are actually and physically in the same part of the brain, since I suspect that they would not be, but it is hard to see how they would be in the forebrain if they learn this slowly and it is so "subconscious" (I don't like that concept). I do know that they know the location of the part of the brain doing it in point one by studying brain damage victims, but i forget which bit it is. I haven't seen studies on the latter. I would not be surprized if it also had a physical location since it seems to be very basic to social evolution. It is likely quite old evolutionary basic feature.
3. I have read elsewhere that this number of categories of physiognomy is variable within cultures, also, so while some people can distinguish many varieties automatically others are more prone to mis-recognition, to coin a word, I think. I think i am one. Once a psychiatrist told me that this was due not to organic brain function but to the fact that if you don't care about it, then you don't bother with that recognition either. So perhaps there is also a behavioural element as well.
4. This part of the brain is supposedly only good for a certain number of people maybe a few hundred max, not for the vast numbers that modern people are exposed to. What effect this has on the situation can only be speculated on, but i do know that one study noticed that increases in adrenal gland size is linked directly to the number of new faces seen in person - not by proxy - daily.
5. It is unrelated to intelligence but is related to exposure of the cultural group the recognizee is from (another word?) and also to exposure to other cultural groups as well. So with practice it gets better at doing it.
Or so it seems.
That is my answer, mostly based on stuff I really know and in part speculation based on that and experience.
Anyone?
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Post by con's fly is open on Mar 28, 2005 2:24:38 GMT 7
In my 17-odd years of hanging around in bars, I've met and had a conversation with around 3000 or so people. Nowadays, everyone I meet resembles someone else I've met before.
I'd like to say I don't lump all the Chinese together, but given my pathetic results on that "Chinese, Japanese or Korean" test, clearly I haven't developed the eye for Asian folks.
Maybe I'll just go by smell, like my dog.
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Post by MK on Mar 28, 2005 9:58:47 GMT 7
Ever find yourself looking at a someone and thinking,'oh, he/she looks just like a Chinese version of so and so back home'? I do.
And it doesn't stop there...I even sometimes have to make a conscious effort to stop myself acting toward this person as if they were said friend back home...
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Post by con's fly is open on Mar 28, 2005 12:51:17 GMT 7
Many's the time I forgot I was in China, until an exceptionally Chinese-looking person walked by. A lot of Chinese look like native Canadians- I had to watch lest I favour the students who did. One kid, 5 years old, looked like Gary Sinese, if, you know, he was a 5 year old Chinese boy. The female teachers all adored him.
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Post by burlives on Mar 28, 2005 13:29:48 GMT 7
Ever find yourself looking at a someone and thinking,' oh, he/she looks just like a Chinese version of so and so back home'? I do. I haven't seen any lately but I used to go around spotting movie stars. It all started one day when I was sure I'd seen David Duchovny walking down the street. Notables since then have been Walter Matthau and Elvis. |
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Post by Raoul Duke on Mar 29, 2005 1:24:01 GMT 7
Notables since then have been Walter Matthau and Elvis. Excellent. Both personas we could use more of here. I'd give a purty to see a Chinese Elvis-imitating contest... Speaking of Da Kang, anyone know how Elvis's Chinese name- Mao Wang or Cat King- came about? Always been curious on this one. Always found it interesting that even the youngest folks here seem to know who Mao Wang is, although I see few references to him other than CDs in the CD/DVD stalls. |
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Post by Mr Nobody on Mar 29, 2005 7:09:29 GMT 7
I don't know if this is relevant, but it is something i saw in Guangzhou a couple of years ago. A poster for a Michael Jackson impersonator. A young Chinese kid about 10 I would say.
(I am not good at guessing kids ages - good at adults, kids, i miss by two years or so, so I am adding two on to what he looks like hoping i ballpark it.)
Looked a lot like Micheal Jackson before all the plastic melted.
Sad really, but it caused a lot of amusement with our group of kung fu dudes. (HK group were more bemused, seemingly it isn't odd to them to have children impersonate Michael Jackson, but having a bunch of insane ozzies and a couple of Poms rolling around the floor cracking jokes was odder than the poster.)
Wish i had taken a pic of it, now that i mention it. Sheesh.
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Post by burlives on Mar 30, 2005 11:47:41 GMT 7
I was invited to someone's apartment today. She made a point of saying she lived alone. Apparently I look just like some Swiss guy who seems to have done a kiss-and-run on her.
She used to be a make-up artist for brides. But the magnetic pull of Switzerland has led her to English.
No, I didn't go. I post the story only because the weirdness of such a relationship seems like it might be normal in this strange land.
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Post by Raoul Duke on Mar 30, 2005 23:32:44 GMT 7
But the magnetic pull of Switzerland has led her to English. Apparently no enlightenment comes with this magnetism. During my (shudder) SILC days I had a girl student approach me at the break. I didn't really know her and had seen her do little but sit out there and doze. Nevertheless, she walked up and asked me in extremely broken English if I would proof her university entrance applications, essays, etc. for her. I reluctantly told her I might take a look, and asked her where she was applying. "University of Geneva!" was her utterly assured reply. "I want to start there in 8 months." "I see. Tell me, do they teach classes in English at the University of Geneva?" "Oh, no, it's all in French." "OK. Then maybe the admissions office would like to see an application in French?" "Oh, yeah. That's a good idea." She brightened. "My friend just moved there to work. <I think it was as a waitress or some such...> I'll have her write my application for me! Thank you!" "Well, there you go. By the way, do you speak any French yourself?" "No, none at all. But I just signed up for a beginner class. Bye now!" and she trotted purposefully away to make all of her Swiss dreams come true. For me, this little memory kind of encapsulates much of the SILC, and the Chinese university teaching, experience.  |
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