Both can pass in GX and GD among either Han or minority, and both can pass in Yunnan among either Han or minority as well. The right one has a slightly better chance to pass in Central China than the left one, but still I'm stretching things a bit cause even the right one looks rather Thai.

I think the right girl's look is probably the most common in Yunnan or Sichuan TBH, while the left one can pass in Yunnan as well as GD and GX.

You don't know that well about Canto peoples either. Cantonese don't just exist in HK or Guangzhou, there're also many Canto speakers in Western GD and GX, and I can definitely see them passing among the Canto speakers in those regions. I think they resemble some of my GX friends and acquaintances.

And they can definitely pass as Daic-speaking minorities in Far South China, no doubt about that.

Compared to the girl on the left, the girl on the right has a slightly better chance at passing further north in China, but the furthest north she could pass is probably Sichuan or Chongqing, anywhere further north than that is hard for her to pass.

Adding on to what Oka said-

Although my observations on body types somewhat go against existing stereotypes, I would also extend it to that Mongols tend to be rather skinny, thin-limbed, and narrow-shouldered, especially when compared to Austronesian groups.

Some Austronesian videos:



(Older Taiwanese aboriginal men- pay attention to their arms)




(Filipino-Americans tinikling- pay attention to their legs)


Compare to young Mongols dancing in Ulaanbaatar:




(pay attention to leg shape)

I still hold such opinions to this day. Northern Chinese, particularly those from the eastern and northeastern parts of Northern China, are much stockier than the majority if not all of Southern Chinese I've encountered. They're probably the stockiest East Asians out there along with Mongols and Koreans.

But there're also differences among Southern Chinese. From my impression, those from Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Auhui tend to be the stockiest among Southern Chinese and are closest in appearance, body build, and height to Northern Chinese. Some Hokkien and Hakka people can be quite tall and stocky as well. In fact the impression I got from watching Taiwanese variety shows is that Taiwanese Han (who are mostly of Hokkien and Hakka descent) are paler, taller, and stockier than the Taiwanese aborigines who tend to be rather thin and have a darker complexion.

Cantonese, on the other hand, are probably the most slender and gracile among all the Sinitic ethnolinguistic subgroups, and I don't think there's a huge difference in terms of body build between Cantonese from the Pearl River Delta and Cantonese from regions further to the west (Pearl River Delta is actually the easternmost Cantonese area, further to the east you'll be entering Hakka and Teochew territories). To give a pertinent example, look no further than Ip Man. The actor Donnie Yen who played him in the Ip Man series is already quite slender and gracile by Chinese standards, and Donnie Yen is of Cantonese descent (it's worth mentioning because many HK celebrities and actors/actresses aren't of Cantonese descent). And the real Ip Man in history (if you bother to search some of his old photos) was even more slender than Donnie Yen, and he was a famous Cantonese Wing Chun martial artist from Foshan.

Overall I would say that Cantonese people's body build is quite similar to neighboring Tai-Kradai peoples, who also tend to be rather slender and lightly built. I think there's a clear positive correlation between the amount of Northern Han genome and the level of stockiness among East Asians, the more Northern Han or Neolithic Yellow River genome a population has, the stockier they are. Hence the reason why Hokkien and Hakka have more stocky types than Cantonese, since they have higher levels of Northern Han/Neolithic YR genome. I think such features were most likely brought to the eastern parts of Central and Southern China by historical Sinitic migrants who came from the eastern parts of Northern China and who migrated down south along a coastal route.

I definitely wouldn't associate stockiness with Austronesians, cause apart from Polynesians most other Austronesians aren't stocky at all, and Polynesians have at least 30% Melanesian genomes, hence the reason they're different.

But how do you know that the people on that photo were all Cantonese? Dubious photo with no date no reference no location cannot prove anything, and it's obvious that you didn't take that photo hence there's no way for you to know.

I don't think with development people would become less stocky. Western Guangdong and Guangxi are generally less developed than the Pearl Delta region and Eastern Guangdong, yet the people there don't give me any stocky impressions, instead they are quite slender and slim even compared to people from Pearl River Delta and Eastern Guangdong, and are rather similar to neighboring Tai-Kradai peoples. You can trust me on my judgements cause I know quite some people from those regions.

I don't deny that Shandong could be an important relay station for the spread of rice cultivation to Korea/Japan and to other parts of Northern China, but how does that have anything to do with stockiness? Does rice cultivation require the farmers to be particularly stocky? I really don't think so judging by my observations, instead it's probably the opposite I would say. IMHO stockiness was a relic from the hunter-gathering populations that inhabited Northern China in the Upper Paleolithic or Early Neolithic, and these peoples largely mixed into the emerging farming populations, hence the reason why early Neolithic Shandong peoples were quite northern-shifted in their genome.