Why are Asian people yellow?

[Xeranox]

Why have asian people the characteristic yellow-like skin color?

[mastadon]

why are white people white?

[eye_nose]

Are Indians yellow?

[VINNY100_2]

Only when they saw Custard ...coming...(:)

[mastadon]

?...i'm confused, didn't the indians slaughter custard and his goons. so that would make it about 4,000,000 : 1 victories for the natives. and before some pedant writes in i have no idea how many natives there were...AB is full of idiots sometimes. usually only when i'm online...strange

[VINNY100_2]

Never mind mastadum...its a complex joke!(:)time for beddys..yet..!!!just dream of custard...yellow...custard..(:)

[Xeranox]

Well, there's a reason why africans are dark brown/black. I mean, from an evoultionary point of view.

[smudge]

What a strange question - most of the Asian people I've come across brown!

[smudge]

*are brown!

[bigveg]

guys-

africans are generally dark in colour because of the skin pigment melanin needs to be more concentrated to protect them from the baking sun.

white folks hail from places where the sunlight is less intense- less melanin needed to protect skin.

asian folk are somewhere inbetween.

[ursula62]

There is a lovely Chinese folk tale...

When God was making the first people out of clay, he baked them in the oven. The first batch were undercooked and white. The second batch were overcooked and very dark brown. The last batch were a perfect golden yellow!

[kaktus]

Thank you so much Ursula! I was telling my boyfriend that story some time ago and after I had finished I sat there for half an hour: The story is from Greenland, no wait maybe it's American hmm somewhere in Asia... Now I have learned that when in doubt ask on AB!

Sorry for going off topic Xeranox

Re you question, Bigveg really says it all. Here is a good link to the wonderful wikipedia on Skin colour.

[Chessman]

I heard the same story too, only in the one I heard, it was the American Red indians who finally came out perfect.

[Gnisy]

*Looks at herself* I won't say Asians are yellow. It's more of a peachy white colour. Koreans and Japanese people are getting whiter and whiter.. or maybe they had been white all this while. Hmm.. actually I rarely see Asians who are 'yellow' persay. We're just a lighter shade of brown.

And Asians are generally made up of Indians, burmese, thais, malays, chinese, koreans, japanese, indigenous people... you gotta be more specific than that. I agree with bigveg's answer from a scientific point of view.

[Xeranox]

Thanks. The Wikipedia article answered my question.