A short time ago a variety program on Shandong Satellite TV aired a segment wherein they tried to create the “most standard Chinese face” for both men and women. The results of their experiment received a cold response in China online, however, drawing comments such as “both are ugly.”

The faces were constructed by the Shandong Public Security Physical Evidence Appraisal Center using data collected from seven cities around China. Faces of men and women over the age of 16 were gathered from cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou to determine their average dimensions.

As we can see from the images, the average Chinese male has a square face, with a strong nose and jaw, and narrow yet full looking mouth. The standard woman also has a fairly long and square face but with a slightly sharper chin. She also has a slightly wider mouth and arching eyes.

Several commenters took to online message boards to complain about the authenticity of these images. “These aren’t the faces of anyone I know,” wrote one unsatisfied viewer while another mentioned, “China is a multi-ethnic nation. What ethnic group is this?”

That second commenter seemed a little confused by the concept of this composite image. If China is a multi-ethnic country then logically the average face wouldn’t look like any one ethnicity but all of them combined.

As far as the comment made earlier regarding their beauty, (of course looks are subjective) but these two seem neither amazingly hot nor horribly ugly. In fact, they look downright average to me, which would suggest the TV program and authorities did a fairly good job of it. Heck, I’d buy a life insurance policy or used minivan from either of these two any day of the week.

Source: Yahoo! Japan News via Toychan (Japanese)