The Changing Face of South Korea

[Goujian]

http://blogs.wsj.com/korearealtime/2...f-south-korea/

About 4 months old, but interesting from a physical anthropology perspective.

South Koreans’ openness to transforming their appearance through cosmetic surgery leads some to joke that it’s hard to know what a natural Korean face looks like anymore.

According to one private research center, the answer to that question around a hundred years from now will be that natural Koreans will look more like Southeast Asians.

The Korea Face Institute conducted a computer simulation based on 20,000 photographs to predict future changes in facial features. The institute forecast that by 2100, the average South Korean man will have thicker eyebrows and a wider forehead.

Women, meanwhile, will naturally obtain eyelid folds often called ”double eyelids,” – a look many South Korean women get through cosmetic surgery now

The reason for the changes is the growth of multicultural families, according to Chou Yong-jin, a researcher at the institute.

That trend that has long been reshaping Korean faces.

Starting in 12,000 BC, Mr. Chou’s team found that the Korean face was more circular and had more southern mongoloid features, based on a skull from that period.

Facial features changed with an inflow of Siberians thousands of years later, all the way up to the present day, in which southern and northern mongoloid attributes combine to create the modern face defined by a small forehead.

A steady influx of foreigners that has picked up over the last decade has created more multicultural families and that shift will lead the southern mongoloid appearance to become dominant again, according to Mr. Chou.

Southeast Asian features will become more prevalent because many immigrants come from that region, including women who marry Korean men.

For the first time in South Korea’s history, from April this year more than 1% of schoolchildren were from multicultural families, according to the Ministry of Education. And of the 67,806 multicultural kids, only 6% had two foreign parents.

By 2050, the Korea Face Institute predicts that 4.8% of the population will be multicultural.

Korean face 12,000 BCE



Korean face today



Korean face roughly 85 years from now; 2100 CE

[LightHouse89]

I think Koreans look cool in picture two.

[Shah-Jehan]

Interesting, so the faces are getting lighter in skintone, more longer and narrower and prominent facial features are reducing in size and also the epincathus is increasing (because eyes are getting smaller).

[Goujian]

Interesting, so the faces are getting lighter in skintone, more longer and narrower and prominent facial features are reducing in size and also the epincathus is increasing (because eyes are getting smaller).

The Korean male face 12,000 BCE would have been Sudsinid-Mittelsinid and the female looks Paleomongoloid. Fast forward to today, the face would be in between Mittelsinid/Nordsinid. So I wouldn't say nearly all Koreans have typical Tungid/Nordsinid features because there are Koreans who do resemble southern Chinese.

While the future face would again shift to Sudsinid. The eyes are getting smaller because Tungids/Nordsinids had larger eye orbits. Even though Mongols seem to have smaller eyes but that's because they have higher incidence of epicanthic fold. The male and female look more like deep southern Chinese.


Left is Mongolian Tungid, right is probably Sudsinid/Paleomongoloid.

Ethnic Mongol


Ethnic Oroqen

[Goujian]

Korean face 1,000 - 1,300 years ago