In the article, "In polite Japan, vulgarities rise as hate speech spreads", it brings up anti-Korean sentiment in Japan. A Japanese person who was a member of a protest organized by Zaitokukai portrayed Koreans as having narrow eyes, and assumed that others have the same perception of Koreans:
To show why he thought the woman on the street was Korean, the speech reader pulled on the sides of his eyes to form narrow slits.
Compared to Japanese people, do Koreans have narrow eyes?
In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, "It is assumed that Korean (sic) had narrower eye fissure [...] than what Japanese craved during that era." (Anthropometric Comparison of Portraits of Korean and Japanese Beauty in the Late 18th and Early 19th Centuries)
In a small-sample study comparing Chinese and Korean eyes, there was no significant difference in height, width, or inclination between the two populations. (Anatomic Properties of the Upper Eyelid in Asian Americans)
A larger scale study 594 Koreans (273 male, 321 female) obtained the following values for height, width, and inclination of the eyes (Asymmetry of the palpebral fissure and upper eyelid crease in Koreans):
Sex Inclination (°) Height*,** (mm) Width*,** (mm)
Right Left Right Left Right Left
Male 8.5 ± 2.5 8.4 ± 2.4 10.0 ± 1.6 9.9 ± 1.6 28.2 ± 3.1 29.0 ± 3.0
Female 9.2 ± 2.5 9.3 ± 2.5 10.2 ± 1.6 10.0 ± 1.7 26.8 ± 3.6 27.6 ± 3.5
Total 8.9 ± 2.5 8.9 ± 2.5 10.1 ± 1.6 9.9 ± 1.6 27.5 ± 3.5 28.2 ± 3.4
A study analyzing the eye height and width of Japanese (Oriental oculopalpebral dimensions: Quantitative comparison between Orientals from Japan and Brazil) reported:
Eye width Age group
20 to 29 years 30 to 39 years 40 to 49 years ≥50 years
Male 25.21 ± 1.27 25.72 ± 1.73 27.26 ± 1.12 23.14 ± 2.51
Female 24.99 ± 1.68 24.63 ± 1.42 24.26 ± 1.40 22.52 ± 2.11
Eye height Age group
20 to 29 years 30 to 39 years 40 to 49 years ≥50 years
Male 9.23 ± 0.96 9.06 ± 1.80 9.10 ± 0.92 7.32 ± 1.33
Female 9.10 ± 1.65 9.08 ± 1.74 8.65 ± 1.11 7.33 ± 1.29
In Anthropometric Analysis of Slant of Palpebral Fissure in Koreans, 996 Koreans including 468 males and 528 females were measured. The slant was reported to be 8.5+/-2.0° in males and 8.8+/-2.5° in females.
In Anthropometric Analysis of Palpebral Fissure Dimensions and its Position in South Indian Ethnic Adults, the authors report that the palpebral fissure inclination for Koreans was higher compared to other racial groups.
In Biometric Study of Eyelid Shape and Dimensions of Different Races with References to Beauty, the authors reported measurements for average and attractive female Korean and Asian faces.
The median eye fissure height (EFH) for an average Korean face was 8.62 mm, for an attractive Korean face it was 10.88 mm, and for an attractive Asian face it was 12.49 mm.
The eye fissure width (EFW) in an average Korean face was 24.81 mm, in an attractive Korean face it was 26.78 mm, and in an attractive Asian face it was 28.10 mm.
