Re: Korean/Japanese/Inupiaq/Aleut/Yupik/Samenoid(sp)

On Mon, 21 Aug 2000, Marcus Smith wrote:

> Well, I got that tidbit of info from an Ainu grammar.  It was accompanied by a
> quote from the linguist who proposed it (Russian I think; but the Germans did
> Ainu work as well) that said it was obvious just by looking at them that the
> Ainu are European by ancestry.  Now, I've only seen pictures, but they don't
> seem that European to me.
Maybe they look European in comparison to all the yellow-skinned,
black-haired, brown-eyed Japanese around them, and the linguist had been
in Japan too long?  I know when I first got off the airport in the U.S.
after 5 years in South Korea, I was *dazzled* by the array of
hair/skin/eye colors (some of them not natural)!

I've seen Koreans dye their hair blond, and it looks very odd to me--sort
of reddish black.  Not to mention a girl I knew who got blue contact
lenses.  Her friends complimented her, but all I saw was this horribly
muddy color.  Too bad you can't bleach eyes as well...and in my childhood
I would've *killed* for green eyes.

YHL