sunken eye test

While I’m working on my next review, here’s a little interesting tidbit I learned from my Korean coworker.

Korean faces versus foreign faces
(In this case I use “foreign” to mean non-Korean.)

Korean faces tend to be a bit flat compared to foreign counterparts. Obviously I don’t mean LITERALLY flat, but from their browbone to their cheekbones (namely their eyelid area), it’s relatively flat. On the other hand, it’s not uncommon for foreigners to have sunken eyes, an eyelid hollow, or just some sort of curvature in general:



For example: Whenever I was on the subway, I noticed that everyone else's face would be completely illuminated by the overhead light. But for me, my eyes would be cast in shadow. From afar, I basically looked like a skeleton with two black holes for eyes. ㅜㅜ Heehee.

Here’s an old picture; notice how there’s light everywhere except for my eyes:




The Sunken Eyelid Test
Later down the line, my coworker told me about a little test to see if your eyelids are sunken or not. (I think she was implying that it's attractive.)

First, rest your finger on your cheek and brow bone. The base of your finger should be on your cheek. The tip of your finger should be on your eyebrow.


Now check: does the middle of your finger touch your eyes? If not, then you have sunken eyelids!


Here I used a chopstick for easier visuals, but as you can see, mine don’t touch. So I guess you could say my eyes are a little sunken. (At least sunken enough to look like a skeleton on the subway!) In the case of my coworker, she had to press on her eyes in order to reach her brow bone.



Disclaimer
Please take this test with a grain of salt! I don’t mean to imply that Koreans want sunken eyelids. In fact, I think my coworker simply has a more “international” standard of beauty compared to most Koreans. Having lived abroad, her standard of beauty is inevitably influenced by her experiences and the people she has met. And who knows, she could have made this thing up herself.

I think for most Koreans, sunken eyes would be one of those things that they’d appreciate on a Western face, but not necessarily want for themselves. (But of course, not every Korean has flat eyelids to begin with!) In my experience, Koreans do find Westerners very beautiful, they keep it separate from Korean beauty for the most part. The two are just so different and incomparable. What I mean by this is that although the Korean standard of beauty is indeed inspired by more Western, less ethnic features (such as a high nose bridge), they wouldn’t literally want a white person’s nose or a white person’s eyelids on their own face. It doesn’t match with their own bone structure or eye shape, and most people seem to understand that. At least, that’s what I’ve come to understand. And we’ll save this topic for another time!

Anywho, I thought it was interesting! But in retrospect, it does kinda remind me of this:

Aryan test:




So, do you have sunken eyes?