I just finished a trip to China, Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, Philippines, and Singapore. I'm a little lactose intolerant but while I was there, I had milk teas, ice cream, store bought yogurt, and regular milk, in every location and I didn't have any issues. I thought maybe I just didn't have enough to give me problems, but when I got back home to Toronto, I had similar amounts of yogurt, ice cream, and even "Hey! I Am Yogost" (which I had in both Manila and Singapore), and I had stomach issues. Why is the milk better in Asia?!?

From what i've read the genetic makeup of Japanese is still somewhat controversially debated. One relatively certain fact is that they and Koreans are genetically the closest to another, due to sharing 91% of their autosomal DNA (direct ancestors).

But Japanese kinda don't seem to look all that much like Koreans. Jomon looks aren't what differentiates Japanese appeareances from Koreans, neither are their genetics. Around 7% of Koreans belong to the supposed mtDNA Haplogroup M7a found in pre-Bronze Age Japan. I'm more talking about Japanese exclusive appearances, that don't have that much overlap with other ethnicities in the neighbourhood.

Briefly referring to this post, which i find checks out:

https://www.reddit.com/r/phenotypes/comments/vmnbhv/misconceptions_about_japanesekorean_phenotypes/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

Koreans look more nerdy, Japanese look more rough on the edges. But... why? If they're supposedly genetically very close.

Japanese Y-DNA is heavy in Haplogroup D, but also can't "Jomon" be since it's not that common among Ainu. Perhaps it's just carried over from "Proto-Japonic" speaking people, related to Tibetans rather than Neolithic hunter-gatherers? Their mtDNA is however much closer to Koreans, heavy on Haplogroup D4 which is very typical for Northeast Asia (Mongolia, Manchuria, Korea, Primorsky, NChina).

There's also various other things fundamentally different between them:

Japanese have a much higher rate of alcohol flush (50-60%), in-line with the rates in inland Southern China (Jiangxi, Hunan, Hubei, Yunnan). It's about 20% lower among Koreans and is similar to that of Southern Tungusic people and Northernmost Chinese (Hebei, since Dongbei Chinese are mostly from Shandong).

Unrelated languages with no base level similarities bar grammar.

Koreans predominantly have high-cheekbones and thin lips. Japanese have more protuding lips and usually often more rounded eyes. Korean eyes have a distinctive straight downwards line on the outer eyes, so they rarely look "angry".

Japanese have a more diverse range of head-shapes. Koreans lean towards average-distribution ones.

Korean diet is more greens & gatherables heavy and less reliant on staple grains overall. Make use of unusual ingredients like fern or acorn.

Areally unique things they have in common:

Bloodgroup A majority, directly inherited from ones parents. Bloodgroup 0 is predominant most of non-Indoeuropean Asia.

Extreme torso-to-legs-ratio. Both have the highest sitting heights in the world, and shortest legs respectively. Has to do with the length of the intestine tract iirc.

Their old people have a higher than average rate of infirmity at age.

Low ADHD rate.

What are some Asian countries do you think offer some great but underrated food? You can use your own country as well if you think its true. And what do you think is stopping it from becoming well-known?

My choice would be Central Asian countries specially Uzbekistan. Foods like plov, manti, lagman noodles and ayran drink are superb. However, you can hardly found Uzbek food outside of the region. I was able to eat those dishes at a Russian restaurant that had an Uzbek chef.

I'd like to know what you think of our cuisine style.

Saw this on r/asklatinamerica and it got me curious on what unusual meat have we tried in each of our countries.

For me, I have tried snake, frog, and dog meat. And yes, I'm glad that I've eaten some "exotic meats" and No, I will not try them again.

In EA, there's a common belief that fruits from SE Asia are incredibly delicious. In Korea, for example, some people even say they travel to SE Asia just to eat the fruit. I also checked online communities in China, Taiwan, and Japan, and it seems like people there feel the same way

I've been to Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Vietnam. Every time I tried the local fruits, they were amazing. Mangoes, mangosteens, rambutans, lychees, and pineapples all tasted so much better than anything I’d had before. There were also so many different kinds of fruit that I had never seen before

That made me wonder if people from Southeast Asia think East Asian fruits don't taste as good as the ones from their own countries. What’s the general feeling?

If there are any, what do you buy there? Which food ingredients or sweets/drinks?

Could be "nation specific" ones too (like Italian shop).

Asking this because I just came back from one and totally forgot Filipino 7-11s serve deep fried shark fin. Yup.

Let me begin. Obviously there is your usual hard liquor like gin, brandy and rum.....and then there's beer. (not much choice outside of pale lager however. although this is changing)

there are also some of our local fermented drinks like: basi, (alcoholic drink derived from fermented sugarcane) lambanog (derived from coconut) rice wine.(fermented too. only served during special occasions though)

I used to live next to a fast food joint and would often order beef fillings, employees that worked there were all Indian and it was always on the back of mind if the cashier was secretly thinking “damn you’re disgusting dude” every time I made my order.

I’m not sure about mine so I’d like to hear other thoughts. alternitavely, what is your favourite dish from that cuisine.

Mainland Chinese, Taiwanese, Singaporean, Malay Chinese etc.

I follow this Taiwanese influencer who mostly cater to taiwanese, they lives in seoul and generally rates korean food in good regards and i appreciate that. But one thing they can't tolerate is korean dumpling.

I mean i've been to Taiwan twice and yeah honestly I can't say otherwise tho.

So i was kind of curious, what do they think of the recent 'authentic Chinese foods' brought by korean-chinese migrants such as malatang, hot pot, lamb skwer, sour sweet pork, fried tomato egg etc.

Like how genuine it is, or they are also koreanized. What's your opinion on them??

Plant based meat has greatly increased in popularity in the west. Has it become a thing in your country?

My uncle's wife is Indonesian. When I was small she babysat me sometimes, and she fed me plain white rice with (salted) butter. She told my mom that kids love it and it's good for them (I guess for the carbs and fats?) I loved this shit. And still to this day as an adult I sometimes put some butter on white rice, it's fkn delicious.

So my question is, is this something you give to kids in Asia/SEA or might this be something she came up with in Europe? AFAIK oils are way more common in Asia.

Potluck is a casual gathering where people contribute food to the party.

Bonus question: The community throws a potluck party for its anniversary. Malaysia brings yellow chicken rendang (bc I personally like bird's eye chilli) so what do the rest bring? Special instructions for Indonesian, Singaporean Malay (if any, I know y'all make up like 10% of all SG citizens) and Bruneian users, pick some other food that isn't rendang

Giving the mods ideas lmao :P

source;

https://www.reddit.com/r/Bolehland/comments/1dwgx5k/in_your_opinion_which_local_cuisine_made_us_fat/

Isn’t the food of the two countries almost same? (Please enlighten me if I'm wrong)

Do Indonesians exercise more?

Wooden chopsticks, fiberglass chopsticks or stainless steel chopsticks?