boston progress radio

Dear BPRLive, do you have a non-Asian doppleganger?

People often tell me that I look almost exactly like people they know or have seen. I haven’t seen anyone who has a striking some resemblance to me, but I do encounter people who are weirdly like my friends in appearance, mannerisms and/or personality. Some Asian American folks I’ve met seem to have doppelgangers of some other ethnicity, like non-Asian or other Asian versions of them. Like this blonde barista at Starbucks seems an awful lot like a Chinese American girl I’ve met, Randall Park (who was also at the San Diego Asian Film Festival) really reminds me of John Ritter, Tatsuya Nakadai’s role in The Face of Another and Vincent Lindon’s role in La Moustache both bring to mind an Indian colleague I used to work with and in one of Jet Li’s older films, he looks like Von Flores (Earth: Final Conflict’s Agent Ronald Sandoval).

Perhaps there are only a finite number of facial features and personality traits, and therefore finite variations they can be recombined in, so doppelgangers are inevitable… Still, it throws me for a loop when I meet them. Do you have a doppelganger who is non-Asian or another Asian ethnicity?

Last 5 posts by sudo

5 comments

5 Comments so far

  1. delia November 6th, 2009 11:55 am

    I don’t think anyone has ever suggested that I have a non-Asian doppelganger. My dad does have a friend who, we always thought growing up, looks like an Asian Patrick Swayze.

    But I cringe for half a second… because, have you ever heard someone say, “Hey, he totally looks like a white Jackie Chan?”

  2. jen November 6th, 2009 6:17 pm

    interesting…! i have never gotten that. it’s usually something specific to ethnicity and race as opposed to otherwise, i.e. “there’s this girl i know who totally reminds me of you. she’s also a unique, asian girl!” :P i dig the topic, and delia’s last comment is definitely food for thought…

  3. ChefPoet November 8th, 2009 10:41 pm

    hahaha that video was genius inventive, inventively genius!!!

  4. sudo November 11th, 2009 10:51 pm

    Delia! Before heading to the Slanty Eyed Mama show, I met someone whose voice was totally reminiscent of yours! And her personality too… kind of.

    And I forgot to mention that a friend of mine looks like a Japanese Fox Mulder!!

    Great to read your comments on this post!

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