C-netizens Vote for Top 10 Asian Beauty Poll with Gao Yuan Yuan and Yoona Leading Off the First and Second Place Spots

It’s equal parts Chinese and Korean starlets when it comes to what the Chinese netizens think are the top echelons of Asian beauty. A Baidu poll this month voted by Chinese netizens ranking the Top 10 Asian Beauty is a rather surprising but not all that controversial list, with basically a who’s who of the ladies that are frequently mentioned as quite beautiful even among their peers. Coming in number 1 is C-actress Gao Yuan Yuan, who is married to Mark Chao and at 37 years old clearly not a fresh face yet is frequently selected as one of the most beautiful Chinese actresses. Korean actress-idol Yoona continues to be extremely popular in China coming in number 2, followed by top C-actress Fan Bing Bing rounding out the top three places. Fourth place is Song Hye Kyo and in a surprise 5th place ranking is T-ara member Jiyeon.

Top 10 Asian Beauty as Voted in Baidu:

1. Gao Yuan Yuan
2. Yoona
3. Fan Bing Bing
4. Song Hye Kyo
5. Jiyeon (T-ara)
6. Crystal Liu
7. Krystal of f(x)
8. Park Shin Hye
9. Zhao Li Ying
10. Angelababy


Comments

C-netizens Vote for Top 10 Asian Beauty Poll with Gao Yuan Yuan and Yoona Leading Off the First and Second Place Spots — 57 Comments

  1. I wonder if Asian beauty only East Asia while ladies from India and South East Asia seems represent the beauty recognition in Miss World or Miss Universe. And ladies from Arabic countries are extremely beautiful.

    • Yes somehow i feel in East Asia they consider only Japan, China and Korea to be Asia. Either they are not well informed or totally uninterested in whole of Asia when making such lists which is sad coz there are so many interesting celebrities in India, Mid East, Turkey etc.

      • I find the repeated attempts to reframe ‘Asian’ as only meaning ‘East Asian’ slightly off-putting tbh. In the UK, ‘Asian’ is generally taken to mean South Asian but also includes East Asians.

        It’s an entire continent, just one part of it doesn’t get to reserve that identity for themselves.

      • That’s because there’s more parallels in the beauty standards of these 3 countries. Celebs in India, Middle East, etc. look too different to be compared together. Also, this is voted by C-netz. If you held the same poll in India, 10/10 of the ranked stars will be Indians. Are people supposed to complain too that India doesn’t represent the whole of Asia? Stop nitpicking really.

      • @kitai except when we Indians have beauty polls we name them TOP INDIAN BEAUTIES
        we do not say ASIAN in the title, see the difference? Asia consists of many other countries nobody should claim ASIAN and not incluse them

      • @rene: What I’m saying is that you can include the Chinese, Koreans, Japanese, Thai, Turkish celebs, whomever you want and chances are people topping that poll will all be Indians. Who’s going to complain about not including celebs from other Asian countries? No one. This obviously a result of differing beauty standards and a lack of general recognition. How do you guys know for sure that no candidates from other countries were in the conversation? Just because they didn’t get voted into the top 10 doesn’t mean that they were never considered. It’s like complaining that the top 100 beauties in the world is invalid and not inclusive enough because of all the nationalities missing. Like “where are the Icelanders, the Singaporeans or the Papua New Guineans?” Does that make sense? The number of states in the world already exceeds a hundred.

    • @fly I’m from south east asia and personally think actresses from India are extremely beautiful. One of the beauty standards in “Asia” is milky fair skin. Most south east asia and India represents olive skin or Asians simply call it “dark skin”. That’s one of the big reasons that korea china and japan are the only on the list and they have the most influence on Asian beauty standards.

    • As this is a poll by C-netizens, they are likely only familiar with names that are active in their entertainment industry. As in it China, only Koreans and Chinese celebrities are familiar to C-netizens. They want to rank the beauties, but it isn’t “Top Chinese Beauties” because they want to include Koreans as well. “Top Chinese and Korean Beauties” is a mouthful. Chinese and Korean are both Asians so it makes sense that they label their poll as “Top Asian Beauties”. Doesn’t mean that they want to take the term ‘Asian’ to mean only East Asians. As it was a domestic poll, the convenience in labelling makes sense to them. Hope this clarifies!

  2. As a European I must have a different taste, because many of the above lists are far down on my own list for sure. Just looking at the very first lady truly makes me wonder if she’s Asian or not.

    Here is my list:
    Shin Se Kyung
    Song Hye Kyo
    Aishwarya Rai
    Han Hyo Joo
    Lee Young Ae
    Manaying Sushar
    Park Bo Young
    Ariel Lin
    Zhang Ziyi… etc.

    I also find the following actresses beautiful and very unique, not to mention their great acting skills:
    Moon Geun Young
    Kim Go Eun
    Bae Doo Na
    Shin Min A…etc.

    • As an European, you are obviously entitled to having different beauty standards, but why do you feel the urge to comment on the asian-ness of the ladies listed here? If you would pardon me for being straightforward, how would an European somehow be more of an expert on Asian features than actual Asians? Furthermore, Asia is a large continent, containing multitudes. There is no stereotypical Asian look as Chinese people look different from Indians and Indians look different from Filipinos.

  3. Jiyeon shouldn’t be on this list at all. As for Yoona and PSH, I feel that there are even more beautiful actresses out there, whether C or K. It’s criminal that the beautiful C actress Ni Ni, is not here. She’s gorgeous.

  4. Eh no. If it comes to East Asia, Japanese women are my pick. Just see the cast of the movie Flowers for e.g. Then again my pick outside of Japan is older actresses like Zhou Xun, Gong Li, Gong Hyo-jin, Shim Eun-ha, Maggie Cheung…

    • Maggie Cheung – the most plain looking HK girl in the industry, she has those wide cheek bones that stick out a mile so she is unique but beauty – far from it.

      • Why pick out Maggie’s cheek bones (a cinematographer’s delight btw), people don’t think GHJ is beautiful too. Shu Qi’s imdb page used to be haunted by losers claiming no Chinese person would find her lovely. And so on. Beauty is a subjective term. “Beautiful” girls who are supposedly perfect are dime a dozen but in my eyes still not beautiful.

      • Ps: How odd though that plain old HK girl somehow was a runner up in Miss HK.

      • Yes, I agree cheekbones are photographers fav and that’s why she was awarded Miss Photogenic rather then winning the pageant. I picked Maggie out of your list because I’ve never found her beautiful and yes, this is my personal opinion. If you watch police cadet 1984 Carina Lau is naturally much prettier than her – figure wise and facial feature wise. Maggie had to have braces fit to her teeth.

      • Beauty is in the eye of beholder. Unfortunately, I don’t consider Yoona is pretty, but she’s definitely not ugly though.

      • I don’t consider Yoona pretty as well. Also don’t think that Park Shin-hye should be on the list, nor Krystal. Zhao Liying is definitely cute but beautiful?

  5. If talking about Asian beauties those Koreans listed in the top 10 only one deserves to be there – Song Hye Kyo. There are many other beautiful woman from other Asian countries who would be in the top 10.

    Of course beauty is subjective…

  6. My top 3 east asian beauties would be (in no particular order) Crystal Liu, Lee Young Ae and Dilraba Dilmurat. I wouldn’t put Zhao Li Ying up there even though I’m a fan of her acting, she’s just cute and adorable to me.

  7. i am among those that think yoona,park shin hye,zhao li ying, jiyeon and krystal doesnt belong on the list.they are all beautiful but top ten in asia,no way.

    where are knetz favs like kim tae hee,lee young ae,kim hee sun and koala fav jun ji hyun.i find it interesting that only song hye gyo appeared on the list as one of knetz fav.these clearly shows the different taste between knetz and cnetz.

    you cant make this sort of list and exclude great indian beauties like deepika padukone, katrina kaif and ashwariya rai.

    • I agree! you cant make the list and exclude beauties like Aishwarya Rai. Whats the use of calling Asian beauties when it doesnt include whole of Asia ?

    • Because your list of Knetz fav ladies are getting old. Not that favourable in china anymore. They are all mummies. Each generation has new beauties.

    • Deepika Padukone is gorgeous indeed. Bollywood has some of the most stunning women but I love her look, it’s more classical/traditional type than most Bollywood actresses.

  8. 1. Gong Li
    2. Aishwarya Rai
    3. Jeon Ji Hyun
    4. Fan Bing Bing
    5. Song Hye Kyo
    6. Crystal Liu
    7. Mai Davika
    8. Kim Sarang
    9. Ploy Cherman
    10. Nana

  9. All the Korean ladies on that list are pretty, I guess…. except for Song Hye Kyo, who is straight up gorgeous.

    I really don’t get the appeal of idol girls like Yoona etc, they seem rather insipid-looking to me but I guess they are popular with the youth?

    Also agreed that if you’re talking about Asian beauties, then all of Asia should be featured, including South and Southeast Asia. East Asia =/= all of Asia, sorry!

  10. I’m probably the only one didn’t find GYY that gorgeous. She is pretty and has simply classy aura but I never get why would she top many beauty list.

    She doesn’t have many successful works either.

  11. Definitely think this poll is more popularity than beauty based in China. Or even how well liked their fan base and the celeb themselves conduct themselves are in China. If so, it would make more sense about the listing. Also about people speaking or some complaining about the list, it’s subjective to China’s opinion on beauty or this case popularity

    • Definitely more of a popularity vote, all of the ladies in the list have many fans. Plus I don’t think the c-netizens will know any of the ladies that some commenters mentioned above if they don’t watch Bollywood or SEA shows. -.-

      Gao yuan yuan is considered as goddess among male netizens in china (I’m surprised when I first saw this info too) but she has been dominating online votes among male netizens for many years I think. Just recently read news of another vote where she’s second (lost to Chingmy Yau).

      Personally think that there are many actresses from HK in the 80s-90s that are uniquely beautiful in their own way (unlike the “clones” we see nowadays).

      • True! HK actresses from the 80s-90s generation are classic, timeless beauties that very few modern actresses (beauty-wise, at least) can compare. Think Joey Wong, Cherie Chung, Lin Jing Hsia, Faye Wong, Barbara Yung (bless her soul), Michelle Reis at their height. And judging from recent photos of them, some of these 50 something ladies can still give the younger generation a run for their money!

        My own personal list for currently working Asian actresses :
        1. Aishwarya Rai (Miss World for a reason!)
        2. Kareena Kapoor
        3. Crystal Liu
        4. Fan Bing Bing (such flawless, porcelain doll – ranked below CL because she obvs. did a lot of PS – it was done well tho)
        5. Ruby Lin
        6. Song Hye Kyo
        7. Ayase Haruka
        8. After School’s Nana
        9. Kitagawa Keiko
        10. Jeon Ji Hyun

      • @J, I think you’ve mixed up the countries. They are not all from HK. Some are Taiwanese and Faye is from mainland China! Just because they starred in HK films/dramas doesn’t make them Hong Kong girls!

  12. Gao Yuan Yuan is BEAUTIFUL. I’ve only seen her in the 2003 remake of Heavenly Sword and Dragon Sabre but in my opinion, it was the best remake because of her, Alyssa Chia and Alec Su.

  13. Are other Asian celebrities other than East Asian popular in China? My understanding is that this is a Chinese poll so unless Bollywood is popular in China (is it? I have no idea) I would not expect to see anyone on this list.

    I am not surprised to see Koreans on the list since before the ban, kdramas and Kent was popular there.

  14. Boring. Ever heard of beauty is in the eye of the beholder? It is endless discussions of who should be considered as the most beautiful. Such useless discussions

  15. My selection of beauties not by popularity. Chinese- Liu Tao, Crystal Liu, Tang Yan, Fan Bing Bing, Dilraba Dilmurat, Sandra Ma Xi Cun, Angelababy,Jing Tian, Emma Wu.

    Korean- most are pretty but doesn’t gives me much deep impression.

  16. Come on be real gals, when do C-netizens ever include Indians in their polls? This discussion of East/South/wherever parts of Asia has been going on for a month… Aren’t you tired of complaining about it over and over again?? Will Indians include Chinese in their polls???

    • I agree. The number of Korean and Japanese drama and movie imports for the Chinese market far exceeds the other countries. Realistically, you won’t be able to find Indians in the rankings. It’s like how the average Indian won’t regconise 99% of Chinese celebs. Why argue over such a minor issue?

      • Issue is not about including or excluding the celebrities from other Asian countries but about the misleading title of both this article and the pole. Term ‘Asia’ is actually used to define a geographical region but it’s excessively misused term in popular media. Even in this article again and again Asian is used as a racial identity which only includes Eastern side of the continent. It’s really irritating when on another side of globe people question if you are Asian then why don’t you look like one.
        Well it’s not like people of another part of ‘Asia’ are dying to get the title of ‘ Asian’. It’s just a valid complain risen due to overlooking of the ‘fact’ by writer of this article.
        I’ve seen such poles from another part of Asia and there titles are precise like ‘Most beautiful Indian Women’ or ‘most beautiful South Asian women’ etc.

      • It IS the issue. Your argument is only valid if you have confirmed that they actually did exclude celebrities from other countries. 99% of people complaining about the poll being un-“Asian” probably did not check this at all. If the C-netizens merely did not vote for them or did not nominate them (this poll is clearly just a popularity contest anyway), the term “Asian” is not misused since those celebrities are just not up on the rankings. In other words, the C-netizens didn’t consider them beautiful. That’s just a difference in beauty standards. Are they supposed to vote Aishwarya Rai onto the rankings just to live up to the “Asian” title? Hell no.

        As I mentioned in a previous comment, I can create a poll to vote for the top 100 beauties in the world, and do I need to have every single nationality on it for it to be inclusive enough? No. I just have to make sure that people have the freedom to nominate and vote for whomever they want to.

        Also, Koala’s not the one naming the poll so this has nothing to do with the “writer of the article” overlooking this “fact” that Asians /= East Asians. It’s written in the screen cap that it’s ranking Asia’s top beauties (and Koala has clarified that it is by votes from C-netizens). So if you really do want to complain, you should find the source and complain to the right people, like Baidu or the Korean channel which keyed on that caption.

    • Chinese need not include Indos, Indians etc. in their beauty lists, no one cares if they think other Asians are beautiful or not. As everyone has noted its the drift towards Asian=Chinese, Korean or Japanese that is getting out of hand. What then is the rest of Asia – just a collection of countries sat on and obscured by a dragon?!

      Nothing wrong with complaining, at least I got to know a few other Asian actresses thanks to the comments.

  17. My top 10 would be (Chinese):
    Guli Nazha, Dilireba, Yang Mi, Fan Bing Bing, Liu YiFei, Liu ShiShi, Zhao Wei, Zhou Xun, Tiffany Tang, Ruby Lin

    From other Asian Countries:
    Bibigul Suyunshalina,Poyd Treechada, Davika Hoorne, Araya Hargate, NaNa, Go Ara, Liza Soberano, Kyoko Fukuda, Erika Sawajiri, Aishwarya Rai.

    I had to google the others because I didn’t really know them that well, I only know them because I follow some of them on Instagram.

  18. Well, i wish some people here know about Raisa. She’s Indonesian singer and very popular and she’s prettier than some skinny celebs above. Raline Shah and Dian Sastrowardoyo are also pretty. Mai Davika from Thailand is pretty.

    For koreans, Song Hye Kyo and Lee Young Ae. Japanese, i think Erika Sawajiri and the lead in ‘A Girl and 3 sweethearts’ are pretty.
    C ent has Dilrabat, Angelababy and Yang Mi. I like an actress but i forget her name. She just got divorced from her film director hubby bcuz he cheated on her, she also once played in a drama with Jerry Yan.

    Hindustani celebs like Deepika, Katrina and Aish are also very pretty.

    Filipinos celebs are also pretty.

    Im asian since i live in south east asia. Asia is very big and consisting of many countries.

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