Is it just me, or does Bridgeport seem to have an unusually high proportion of Asian Sims (not necessarily with Asian names, just Asian-looking)? Case in point: Flo-Flo Chique, Lilly-Bo Chique, Jun Xu, maybe Ace Wilde, Lola Belle, Kai Leiko, maybe Alan Stanley, Violet & Hyacinth Atkins, Kirby Wise, ... think I got most of the notable ones.

Kirby Wise doesn't strike me as Asian, and I thought the Chiques were Hispanic? I dunno. I really don't think there's that many Asian sims in Bridgeport, though I have noticed an increase in Asian sims being released since Sims 3 came out. I've been Simming since the early days of Sims 1, and I've never seen so many people make Asian sims!

Of those I think only Jun Xu and Kai Leiko look Asian (I haven't seen Ace Wilde or Kirby Wise up close though). It seems like you're mainly just listing everyone with an olive skin tone.

Nah, I know what Asians look like. But of course, the assessment is done on a Sims-level so there is a margin of error.

I think the Chiques are supposed to be Hispanic. Lola Belle looks of African descent to me. I've noticed EA isn't too subtle on the surnames when it comes to intended ethnicity.

Jun Xu is for sure supposed to be "Chinese". In fact, one of my family's friends has that name, though he's a man.

As for Kai Leiko, it's hard to say. From a Google search, Leiko is a Japanese name for girls, and a last name for a deceased Latvian actress. "Kai Leiko" is part of the title of an mp3 of a track--whose correct spelling is "Galazio kai Lefko" ("Blue and White")--by a Greek artist. I guess EA was going for an "exotic" Sim--but not necessarily Asian.

I didn't think any of them were asian in my game except Jun Xu. Sims mostly look kinda vague and multiracial to me anyway.

It's hard to tell if this or that sim is 100% white or 100% hispanic. But yeah Lola Belle and the others looked hispanic/black. And I thought Ace Wile, Kai Leiko, Atkins sisters, Kirby Wise, and Alan Stanley were all white...

Most faces from the China World Adventures expansion looked clearly asian.

Hmm.. not many Indian looking sims around though, are there? Apart from the Alvi's. I think that's strange..

Am I the only one who really doesn't care at all what real-life race sims are meant to be? I really didn't like that there was Egypt and China and France in WA (I wouldn't have minded if they were inspired by the cultures of those areas, just called something else). My sims I make are never from anywhere in particular, or any particular race, though they may bear a resemblance to a particular race. If nothing else, it means people don't tend to bitch and moan all, "WTF, she doesn't look Korean at ALL!" when I upload.

I'm with you, I much preferred how they did things in Sims 2 BV, where the vacation locations took things from a bunch of cultures, like how Twikki Island had influences from Polynesian and Caribbean cultures mixed together. It made Twikki more of it's own thing.
But then I just don't like a lot of real world references in Sims generally. I'm glad the regular neighborhoods aren't location specific, though they are inspired by different regions.
Not seeing Sims as any specific race helped a lot when dealing with dark skinned, blonde haired Sims. Not being mentally tied to the idea that that doesn't happen made it easier to deal with when it did happen. :p

I guess I'm the opposite. Maybe it's because I'm Asian, having grown up (and currently living) in a city that is 90.4% white and only 1.1% Asian, I may be more cognizant of race due to having felt all my life like I don't really fit in. However, what I once felt was a negative growing up, I now feel is a positive because it makes me unique in my community. All the sims I make are always in my mind a specific race or a mix of specific races from the second I start moving the sliders. Although some people think so much focus on racial differences is akin to racism, the opposite is actually true in my case. I find it more exciting and interesting to meet and befriend people who are a different race or culture than me. Racial differences actually attracts me to others, which is probably why I tend to make sims of all specific races and often have them end up in interracial relationships.

That may also be why the blonde-haired dark skinned sims with Western facial features bother me. I always deleted them when the game spawned them, and I've since added hacks to prevent game-generated sims entirely.

@Piffany
From what I see, there is a bit more Asian Sims in Bridgeport however many of the EA made Sims are very poor in construction and exhibit features for different races. And to me it doesn't come off as intentional either, they just look bad. XD

@HystericalParoxysm
I understand where you're coming from. When I create Sims, I think of them like characters and usually pick what they look like based on that. Though every once in a while though I will try to create Sims from different ethnic groups either for the challenge or just for fun.

The question is, what is the "right" proportion of Asian (or Hispanic or African-American or Caucasian or Pacific Islander etc etc etc) sims to HAVE in a city? Every city in the world has a different ratio of ethnicities.

I am basically with HP though. While it's clear that EA does in fact design certain sims around cultural stereotypes that we have, the concept of race isn't really intrinsic to the game mechanics at all. If it were, from a biological point of view, you'd expect a correlation between hair color and type, eye color and skin tone, but those things all vary independently. And if it were present as a cultural construct, you'd expect Sims to be at least AWARE of each other's race, and have some kind of behavior based on it -- but in fact, I think the game engine would make it very difficult for a sim to make use of another sim's skin color, for instance in determining attractiveness or filtering interactions.

So basically, if you see race in the game, that is something that is coming from you. The game doesn't even have the concept built in.

I guess I never really thought about what race my sims could be... even when I saw the Chiques walking around I didn't consider their race-- I just thought they dressed a little odd. I often give my sims blue or pink skin just to change it up a bit. I'm one of those people who like their sims to be LESS realistic, but everyone's different.

It's pretty cool how there are so many perspectives on playing TS3.

I don't mean to imply there is a certain proportion of any race that should be considered "right". I'm simply comparing to earlier versions of the game. Notably, in the original Sims (without the addition of any expansion packs), there are clearly White/Caucasian Sims. The Hispanics were probably represented by the Bachelors (Michael and Bella) and Melissa Roomies was the Black girl (I'd say African-American but I don't think she's American). Over the years, EA has definitely created a much wider variety of Sims, in terms of skin colour, hair colour, body shapes, if nothing else.

For reference, the list of Sims from the original game: http://sims.wikia.com/wiki/List_of_Sims_from_The_Sims

I'm with GnatGoSplat. Like him, I'm Asian, and am acutely aware of differences in appearance between races, as I also grew up in an area with a small population of Chinese. As much as I'd like to think that blindness to race is a good thing, I think variety is far more exciting and interesting. I think that racial, ethnic, and cultural differences ought to be understood, respected, and appreciated as they are--merely differences, rather than points of superiority or inferiority.

In Sims and in real life, it's fascinating to me to see how traits from parents of different races mix in their children. I play the game primarily to see genetics get passed down through successive generations, though it does gratify me to see them succeed and generally be happy.

I like making my Sims with genetics that can be seen in real life, though I do have some fantasy Sims (elves, etc). I never really liked "pan-Asian" or "Asian-inspired" restaurants, which I see as part of the habit of many to lump all those of East Asian descent into one group (alllooksame.com, anyone?). Cuisines vary greatly among eastern Asian countries as well. Similarly, seeing "exotic"-looking Sims with no clear racial, ethnic, or cultural origins makes me groan. It's just how I play, though.

For me Sim race is important due to bad EA genetic coding. The only way I can have genetic diversity in my game is by making sure sims of the same race marry each other. I don't know if I'm unlucky when it comes to genetics but for example I had one black guy who married a black lady and they had 5 kids, four of those five kids had children, and out of those 6 grand kids, only two were black. I've also had a bunch of other mixed white/black and white/Egyptian and all those kids ended up white. If they at least would be mixed, it wouldn't be so bad, but they are always either or kids, and that sucks. It was equally bad in TS2, I always had either or babies, never mixed.

I'm not extremely bothered by the 'genetics' of the game because I play so slowly that it doesn't come up that often. I'm not sure why EA didn't make a simple genetics program that would choose one of the parents' eye color, one of the parents' hair color and one of the parents' skin color. In real life, it's more complicated and the traits of the grandparents factor in. In some families I've played, the genetics seemed to work perfectly and in others not as much. For example, 2 sims with red hair had a child with black hair. He's cute and I'm not going to change his hair color but that could only happen in the sim world, I think.

Ha ha! "Certain" people in real life can't tell Hispanics from Asians so how would you expect us to do it with the sims?

There's a bajillion for Sims 2.

Not only if they're anime style, but asian style as well!

I use Twallan's TheStoryProgression. If you turn off all Immigration Pressures, you'll never get EA-spawned sims moving into your town. You'll still get game-spawned sims if you need a Mixologist or someone at a cash register, but Twallan's TheRegister mod fixes that. Hopefully he will improve it to include paparazzi and other types of sims as well.

Since I sim my family the most often, I married into a ready made Japanese family so I tend to look for, or design mainly asian appearing sims.... I'm kinda terribad at it, but it's my game so whatever.

All my sims are Scandinavian looking or Italian.

To me, while gender and race isn't really an issue on my playthrough, I do find that sometimes a greenish-haired dark skinned sims to be pretty unrealistic and it kinda irks me somehow, as I generally made neighborhoods and worlds to be as close as possible to their source of inspiration.

Good grief, all of the sudden I noticed I was reading a 9 year old thread. (!!!!!!)

And I have never noticed an unusual number of Asian Sims in Bridgeport.