random curiosity

[ratcreature]

I've been wondering about epicanthic folds after reading once again a line in an eye tutorial that they appear only on Asian eyes. I know that is not true, because my own eye corners have such a skin fold, though not an extreme one (here's a closeup photo of my own eyes, you can see the small folds on the inner corners). I realize they aren't *that* common with Caucasian eyes (a couple of times I was even teased as a kid), but obviously they happen as normal variation (and not just with genetic diseases).

Poll #9098 non-conformist eyes

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 27

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What are your eye corners like?

View Answers

my eyes have such epicanthic folds without any Asian ancestry
9 (33.3%)

my eyes look like expected (i.e. no folds, or folds only with the right kind of ethnicities)
18 (66.7%)

Comments

[petra]

My stepfather and his mother, both as far as anyone knows of thoroughly English descent, both have them.

[ratcreature]

Yeah, ascribing this only to Asians seems really an over-generalization, even though I think in my family I'm the only one.

[laurajv]

To qualify my answer: it was much more noticeable when I was a child (it is VERY noticeable in toddler-age pics of me) but became less noticeable, but still present, as my nose grew from kid-button to its adult shape. The fold got kind of...pulled up out of the corner a bit by the bridge of my nose increasing in prominence, but (for example) my Italian-Irish ancestry husband hasn't got any kind of fold there at all. Neither of our children have the folds.

Also, I probably do have (non-recent) Asian ancestry: my paternal grandfather's family was from Poland, and like many places in eastern Europe, there's a good bit of Mongol ancestry floating around in Poland. Most of his same-gen and my-mother's-gen relatives are 100% Polish ancestry, and a lot of them have marked epicanthic folds and other facial features that make them look sort-of Asian.

[ratcreature]

I don't think I have any eastern European ancestors, though who knows, it's not like Poland is far off. I think in my immediate family I'm the only one with such folds, at least neither my siblings nor parents have them (not 100% sure about grandparents).

[parhelion]

I have 'em, but I have Native American blood so it wasn't all that surprising.

[ratcreature]

Yeah, I guess they are more common among Native Americans than Europeans.

[busaikko]

I have none, and as far as I can tell neither of my half-Japanese children do.

[kiratael]

Probably about a third of my students here in Japan don't.

[busaikko]

*subscribes to you* Hi!

[kiratael]

Hi! Uh, I post on Dreamwidth about once a year...so maybe I should get on cross-posting...

[busaikko]

No worries! I live in Kinki, and I love finding other people here in Japan.

[kiratael]

I live up in Hokkaido - in the bit that gets the warmest winters...except that there's all this snow.

[busaikko]

Awesome! I miss snow. We get maaybe five centimeters a year down here on a good year, nothing some years. (And we have a spare bed if you ever want to come on down *g*)

[ratcreature]

Yeah, when you look at Asian eyes you often see some without that fold, just like not all have that single eyelid either. But the drawing tutorials about eye structures I've come across don't tend to claim that these folds happen with all Asian eyes, just that don't normally happen in Europeans. And it irks me each time anew, as if they claim my eyes weren't shaped right, perhaps because it's still somewhat of a sore spot. (I still remember how my sister once told me my eyes made me look "retarded"...)

[kiratael]

I'll add to the weirdness - I only have the fold over my left eye and my ancestry's all Irish-German, as far as we can tell. My first cousin's daughter has one over her right eye. My maternal grandmother had folds over both and she's Irish as far back as we can trace (1820s).

[ratcreature]

That's interesting. I guess we are never exactly symmetrical, so that may happen. And it's good to have my feeling confirmed that such a fold isn't actually all that uncommon in European eyes after all.

[lilacsigil]

I have them and so did my grandmother - she would tease me for my "chinky eyes". She was of all-Scottish descent, I'm Scottish/Irish/English.

ETA: I should say, the folds are supposed to help reduce glare from snow or at high altitude, so maybe it's not so weird that other ethnic groups have them too.

[ratcreature]

Really? I had never heard that snow glare theory. And I can't quite see it. I mean, how would it even help?

[lilacsigil]

Google epicanthic fold snow glare to see a lot of results! Apparently the shallower shape of the eye and the pad of skin has a protective effect against glare and also against snow and/or sand getting in your eyes.

[maire]

My eyes look like expected, but my partner has definite epicanthic folds. He has one great-grandmother whose racial identity is unknown, but his mother and grandmother didn't look particularly Asian.

[ratcreature]

Yeah, I think sometimes they just appear randomly as variation.