> > but you
> > are unlikely to hear anyone referring to "Black Japanese".
>
> Because historically we don't have any relationship between Africa.

Well, up to a point, I suppose, but the reason we say Black British is not
so much because of a historical relationship as because the concept of
"Britishness" is linked, not so much with ethnicity as with nationality. For
example, the novelist Kazuo Ishiguro was born in Japan, and is ethnically
Japanese, but he has British nationality, and is British to all intents and
purposes.

In Japan, on the other hand, "Japaneseness" cannot be acquired simply by
taking Japanese nationality. It is something that comes from one's ethnic
make-up, something one is *born* with. Even then, one can "cease" to be
Japanese, by living abroad for too many years. Ishiguro would not be
considered Japanese, and returnee (kikokushijo) students at Japanese
universities are very often there for the simple reason that - even though
they are Japanese by birth and perhaps by nationality - if they graduate at
a university outside Japan they will no longer be perceived as Japanese.

That was the difference I was getting at. There's some disagreement about
whether Koreans born in Japan and with Japanese nationality are "Japanese",
but when it comes to people who don't even *look* as if they *might* be
Japanese (whether they are black or white or brown), there is more or less
universal consensus that, even if they have Japanese nationality and were
born in Japan, they are not really "Japanese".

> The Japanese are not a homogeneous race as people think. As well as
> Britain, there are mainly two major origins, Yoyoi and Jomon. Yayoi
> refers to those who immigrated from the continent as well as
> Anglo-Saxon, and Jomon refers to those aboriginal Japanese including
> Ainu and Hayato.

Yes, exactly, although even the people you call "aboriginal" came originally
from elsewhere.

Western part of Japan except southern Shikoku and
> Kyushu, that is close to the continent is the region that the more
> Yayoi folks inhabit, and the north eastern part of Japan is the Jomon
> region. The well-known conflict of "Kansai vs Kanto(west vs east)" is
> originated because of this ethnical difference, I think.


Well, there's a lot of debate about this. According to one school of thought
the Jomon people took over the Yayoi language and culture, but the Yayoi
were few in number, and were basically assimilated, genetically speaking,
into the Jomon stock. The opposing school contends that the Yayoi pretty
much destroyed the original Jomon stock and replaced it. From what we are
currently learning about how human populations met and mixed during that
period it seems likely that the truth is somewhere in between.

During the Kofun period Kanto, Tohoku and Hokkaido were outside the
incipient "Japanese" culture, which was being defined by Yamato. Yamato was
basically located in the area from Kyushu to the Kinai plain (i.e., it
included the Kinki, or Kansai, area). There doesn't seem to be any certainty
about whether Yamato culture was developed by the Yayoi people, but it is
not implausible. If so, you could make the following analogy: the older,
"Jomon", areas of Kanto, Tohoku and Hokkaido were to the newer, "Yayoi"
culture of Yamato as the Celtic areas of Britain were to Anglo-Saxon
England. An attractive, and not implausible analogy, but there's no real
proof about it either way.

Has anyone conducted tests on the genetic make up of the present-day
inhabitants of the different regions of Japan? Tests on the genetic make-up
of the Celts and the English are giving some very interesting (but still
inconclusive) results.

Another very important aspect is language. The Celts had (and still have, up
to a point) their own languages, unrelated to English, which is a pretty
clear determiner of a separate culture. The Ainu language survived until
comparatively recent times, but what language(s) would the inhabitants of
Kanto and Tohoku have been speaking in the Kofun period?

At any rate, whereas England continued to be the main power-holder in the
British Isles, Yamato finally gave way, and the seat of power shifted. I
wonder whether this sense of having been bypassed, overlooked, ousted
(whatever you'd want to call it) lies more at the core of the sense of
Kansai resentment felt by Kaz than any supposed genetic difference between
the Kansai and Kanto stock?

Still, it'd be interesting to see some actual *research* (as opposed to
speculation). Perhaps there *is* a genetic difference.

--
John
http://rarebooksinjapan.com