I know that guys from Japan, China or Korea don’t easily get thick facial hair (as in: having a literal beard) or it’ll take longer to grow in comparison to Euro-Western men for some reason even if both groups didn’t shave, what I mean is in a week: the American guy is starting to grow a beard while the Japanese guy hasn’t gotten it yet despite both waiting 7 days unshaven.
Like this: both guys work for the same corporation where suits are required & must be presented with decorum, the Japanese guy hasn’t shaven for that long but still looks clean while the American guy shaved yesterday before work as the beard has grown, so basically the American guy has to shave frequently while the Japanese guy doesn’t use the razor that much.
It’s the same thing with SE Asian (Thai, Vietnamese, Filipino, Indonesians) guys since it’s not common for them to heave beards within a week on the same extent as European & Western men. Rather it only displays a small patch of facial hair instead of a full beard if left unshaven, it grows at a slower pace for them while its rapid for both Western & European guys.
I read this and immediately thought “well, that’s completely wrong”.
I’m British, so to me “Asian” usually means from the Indian Subcontinent. Some of those guys can be very beardy!
Anyway, the answer to your question is a phenomenon called Neoteny.
Basically, it’s the retention of juvenile characteristics into adulthood. It occurs almost exclusively through sexual selection.
In East Asia populations, there is a mutation in the EDAR gene which is associated with the specific differences you’ve mentioned (along with thicker head hair, less prominent chins, smaller boobs, etc).
Also british here. I don’t get why people don’t just say Southern Asian, West Asian, Central Asian, East Asian.
We do that for europe and Africa, so it isn’t offensive or anything, right?
It really neatly divides people into generally similar groups (admittedly Afghanis can be profoundly distinct from Indian-subcontinent-als, and i consider both to be south asians)
I grew up in the US and I always used “Asia” on its own to mean East Asia and think everyone else I knew did as well. Anywhere else just was called something else (India, the Middle East, South-East Asia, and so on). I don’t think it hit me until I moved to Japan in my 30s, but I definitely see it a lot still in USAmerican-heavy online groups.
Any idea how that functions in Scandinavia , with less hair, but big sturdy women (big breasts, strong ect) and men too?
Scandinavians can often have thick beards, or am I wrong? Maybe their body hair looks like it’s less because it’s lighter?
Most of us aren’t growing beards in our teens 😅 It’s more like the old japanese man who have let it grow for 50 years to get one.
Don’t need thick hair for the climate; make it chunky with a layer of fat and some fluffy hair and it probably isolates just as well in nature.