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PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   26973 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 13, 2026

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Can you give me an example of a woman who'd be considered a 10/10 in China?

Zhao Luisi of the current generation, and Michelle Reis (the girl on my pfp) are my favourites.

Just look up any dancing e-girls on douyin. Obviously they use many layers of plastic and filters, but it gives you an idea.

Side note: China's tiktok brainrot is really no better than ours!

We must have decidedly different tastes then. For me it's Ming-Na Wen and Michelle Yeoh (when she was younger). And Lexa Doig but she's half scotish/Philippine

Michelle Yeoh (when she was younger)

Honestly: I think I would even today.

At the level of detail needed to tell an 8 from a 9 from a 10, I can't tell what those chicks look like because the Wikipedia infobox pictures are taken in soft focus. Is this normal for Chinese women in Chinese media?

IMDB has a few more photos and videos (1 2).

the girl on my pfp

Is it from a movie?

Yup. Wong Kar-wai's Fallen Angels.

Everyone gushes about In the Mood for Love. Myself and the missus tried watching it but found it painfully slow and ended up turning it off after about forty minutes. Maybe I should give it another try.

I'll tell you this much, if you (and especially the missus) find WKW's movies boring or unrelatable, that's probably a good thing. It's a good sign you're happy where you are and your relationship/marriage is healthy.

My wife and I liked In the Mood for Love a lot (less so Days of Being Wild and even less so 2046). I can assure you there's no problem though.

It's simply such an amazing vibe and mood. Also WKW's obvious penchant for ass is amusing.

Not who you're responding to but Li Gong in her day was enormously popular.

Now she is stunning.

She’s pretty, but I think she’s polished her look to be more appealing to Western audiences. Same with Zhang Ziyi.

What about the Japanese? Do they care for Chinese actresses? I feel like their tastes might overlap, but not be exactly the same. I know some Taiwanese actresses were or are popular.

As usual I have to insert that I cannot speak for Japan, but in my my experience Japanese don't make much commentary on Chinese models, actresses, etc. The same cannot be said about Koreans--meaning Koreans are regularly commented on as kirei or kawaii, or, since I am in Kansai, meccha kirei na hito. (Lit. very pretty person.) I guess there were some Taiwanese who were known --notably Vivian Tsu, though I haven't seen her around in years (probably because she's about 50 now and has no doubt had facial surgery which irrevocably altered the cute image she had in the 90s/2000s). Some women are probably part Chinese though, and just don't trumpet it over PR.

A side note: More buxom (by Asian standards) women are rarely top tier actresses or models here. They end up, in their brief career spans during youth, doing so-called "gravia" or semi nude books and calendars (グラビアアイドル is a term) or pornography. At times they transition to the mainstream (as in the late Ai Iijima) but that's almost unheard of.

"gravia"

The typical English transliteration is "gravure".

I probably knew that, thanks.

Thank you. Obviously it’s not everybody, but I have a general feeling that the Japanese know very little about China, even less than your typical American, to a point I find genuinely irritating.

Part of it is the lack of cultural export, and the perception of us being (not necessarily incorrect) low class. Like their typical Chinese girl in anime still have that twin hair buns or wear Qipao and good at Kongfu or whatever, some century old stereotypes. Cultural inertia is another piece. But sometimes they're just oblivious enough to, for example, think obviously Chinese gacha games are made by Japanese companies. Really? Like freaking Arknights or whatever has a whole storyline built around Chinese-flavored characters and New Year events. It's right there. I mean they have people who know us really well, the old 漢學家 but I guess they’re on their way out.

Re the buxom women, I feel like they somehow associate bustiness with promiscuity (not sure, that’s a feeling through second hand cultural exposure), and it’s sad those models ended up where they are.

Well I don't know how sorry I feel for them. You can mourn a world where they feel that's their lot in life, but no one's twisting their arms (as far as I know) to take off their tops. It's lucrative in the short term and I think historically very much exposed the girl to abuse (from agents, scouts, management) as well as public ogling. In the sense that an unworldly or unsavvy young woman is duped (or drugged!) sure, it's too bad. It's potentially tragic. It's infuriating. But there's a naïvete that I find a bit cloying in certain girls, if it is naïvete at all--it might just be that they're disingenuous in the style of the burikko if you're familiar with that term. Add to that a certain different cultural approach to sex and it is what it is. Outright rape and abuse certainly does exist, though, and I suspect was more of a common routine in the past. If there's anything good about Post your own porn sites or camgirl type business, it's that to some degree the girls can have more control and not be gang raped on camera for ten grand or however much a pittance they have historically been paid.

Exceptions in my mind, or situations where I'd genuinely feel pity, are where the girl, due to her endowments and the sleaziness of those around her, was, at puberty, treated as a sexual plaything by a relative (fondled or worse) and internalized this pathologically. I've heard terrible stories.

Also curious how big a regional skew there is to this. Based on my travels in China I'd say that the Northern provinces tend to produce a higher average attractiveness for both genders, but a lot of that's the height and relative sturdiness.

I think northerners tend to prefer people who are taller and more robust. Southerners from Shanghai, Zhejiang, and Jiangsu also have noticeably different tastes from Cantonese. They favor the “小家碧玉” type, smaller, more delicate, with a neotenous look, while Cantonese tend to prefer the “miss hongkong” style like my example 4 and 6.

Beauty standards across the country are a lot less diverse now than they were maybe 20 or 10 years ago to many’s dismay, probably because of social media. Now everyone like neotenous faces and slim figures. Southern cultural hegemony and its consequences. It’s a familiar pattern in China with northern political/military dominance paired with southern cultural take over.

I've always found it funny that mainland Chinese always refer to Shanghai "southern", when from a geographic perspective it's near the geographic latitude median and if accounting for population density, probably north of that. At least in my experience, the people from places like Jiangsu, Nanjing, Shanghai, Hangzhou seem a lot more similar to people from Beijing than than to people from Guangdong.

That’s because when the Chinese empire divides (usually along the Yangtze River) the seats of major southern successor states are usually in the Yangtze Delta, almost never in the Pearl River Delta (except for Sun Yat-sen’s brief governance from Guangzhou, which reflect the shift of gravity within China in the late imperial era until now). The “southern dynasties” almost invariably choose to rule from Nanjing or Hangzhou. It’s customary to call that part of China “the south”, meaning mostly the region south of Yangtze.

Cantonese and Hokkien are more clannish and, yes, pretty easy to distinguish. But I do think northerners and the “southerners” in the Yangtze Delta are also easily distinguishable, from the way they look or accent or mannerism. One of those in-group sensitivity things I guess.

Isn't it usually along the Huai? That was the point of division for the Jin (晉) and the Sixteen Kingdoms, as well as the Southern Song and the Jin (金). This puts the entire Yangtze delta area unambiguously within the "South", rather than it being bisected by the Yangtze into North and South, at least if you follow the old course of the river before it became a Yangtze tributary.

(I realise I'm nitpicking and this comment is more being a pedant for the other commenters, as you clearly suggest that the Yangtze delta is "Southern" in another comment)

Yes, the Qinling-huaihe line is the traditional north-south boundary. It roughly matches the 800mm isohyet and divides China into the more arid, wheat-based north and the more humid, rice-based south. You probably know this already.

On the boundary question: you’re right that the Huai has historically served as the natural border between eastern Jin and the northern states (and roughly the boundary through most of 南北朝), and later between Jurchen Jin and Song. But the boundary kept shifting throughout the three kingdoms and the northern and southern dynasties. Sun Wu mostly held the Yangtze as their line against Wei, and by the end of Liang the southern dynasty had retreated to the Yangtze, where it stayed until Sui. Throughout 魏晋南北朝 the frontier generally is somewhere between the yellow river and the Yangtze, with the Huai as the midpoint and a major river for fortification. 所谓守江必守淮. I’m not sure why the Yangtze as a border is more fragile than the Huai though, so if you know that I’d love to hear.

For some reason in my own mental map I still place the boundary at the Yangtze. I know cities like Hefei and Yangzhou are solidly southern, but for some reason I still feel like the line should be drawn there. Apparently not just modern Chinese like me, Book of Southern Qi:

魏主甚重齐人，亲与谈论。顾谓群臣曰：“江南多好臣。“侍臣李元凯对曰：“江南多好臣，岁一易主。江北无好臣，而百年一主。”

They seem to think they’re “江北” and the southern Qi “江南”. Not exactly matching the map.

Maybe the Yangtze is just a stronger mental image than the Huai, and that was already true before the Huai ceased to be a meaningful independent river after it merged with the yellow river 夺淮入海.

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Ah, I figured there must be a historic reason so I appreciate the added context. China is certainly not unique in this regard, considering the "Middle East" is in the western half of Eurasia and the "Midwest" is in the eastern half of the US.

So when Chinese say "southerners", are they referring to everyone from Shanghai to Hainan to Sichuan? If that's the case, are there real unifying cultural reasons or is this more of a definition by exclusion on the part of northerners to group "everyone that isn't us"?

So when Chinese say "southerners", are they referring to everyone from Shanghai to Hainan to Sichuan?

Yes and no I guess? In my mind (I'm from the north but my ancestors lived in Zhejiang for millennium) southerners means people who live within 300km of Nanjing, basically those in Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Shanghai, Anhui. But I asked my wife and for her it means anyone who lives south of the Yangtze.

If that's the case, are there real unifying cultural reasons or is this more of a definition by exclusion on the part of northerners to group "everyone that isn't us"?

I think there are cultural reasons. Northern China was under nomadic rule for longer, and cultural customs are similar enough there although not entirely homogeneous. Southern China was mostly under Han Chinese rule, and is more culturally diverse (Southerners from Shanghai, Guangzhou or Chengdu are meaningfully different than northerners from Beijing and Shenyang, at least in my mind).

Still as a Westerner I'd say the Northerners are more likely to turn my head aesthetically. I did a jiujitsu tournament in Beijing and I was shocked at my division having good numbers at 100+ KG and big, beefy local Chinese. Admittedly mostly from Tianjin or further North than that but compared to the largely Southern overseas diaspora it was a pretty big shock to me.

Zhang Ziyi

I had such a crush on her when I saw Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and House of Flying Daggers as a child. Still would today, honestly.

Should’ve included in my post.

Here, voted by close to a million thirsty Chinese dudes on Hupu, a sports forum.

Exhibit 1

Exhibit 2

Exhibit 3

Exhibit 4

Exhibit 5

My personal favorite

I agree with the vote mostly.

I was considering maybe 咬人猫 but being a cosplay dancer might skew things to a certain demographic, and obviously everything would be super curated and choreographed.

You’re more online than me :( honestly they all look the same after the makeup…

Agreed on 2, 3 and 6. I have noticed that Chinese men seem to favour a more androgynous look.

I once dated a woman from Taiwan who would be considered slim by Irish standards. She told me that, back home, the beauty standard is for women to be exceptionally thin and flat-chested, to the point that her classmates in secondary school teased and mocked her for her comparatively big boobs. (Needless to say, I wasn't complaining.)

I talk with a friend when visiting Shanghai - do women here have ass and boobs? His answer was short - we call them the runways because a plane can land on them without shaking.

I do think our men and women look more alike than Westerners. Gender swapping has been a common plot line in Chinese novels and shows, going back more than a thousand years. The story of Mulan for example dates to around 400 AD and involves a woman serving in the army masquerading as a man.

She told me that, back home, the beauty standard is for women to be exceptionally thin and flat-chested, to the point that her classmates in secondary school teased and mocked her for her comparatively big boobs.

God knows how much I hate that trend. I don’t understand why some Chinese men like that candlestick woman look. They’re already borderline anorexic, and still somehow “fat”? Screw that.

Oh well, I guess selection pressure will take care of their obsession with small pelvises and lack of breast milk…

The story of Mulan for example dates to around 400 AD and involves a woman serving in the army masquerading as a man.

It was my favourite Disney movie as a child, and probably a major contributing factor to my taste in women.

I do think our men and women look more alike than Westerners.

During Covid I binge-watched Silicon Valley, an American sitcom featuring a minor character played by Jimmy O. Yang. I took a screenshot of him and sent it to my brother with the caption "I think my thing for Asian women is getting out of hand, because he's kind of cute?" Obviously I meant it in jest, but if Yang were to troon out I do think he'd have a much easier time passing than most white men.

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