As a Japanese person, I think my answer is ‘no’.
To put it bluntly, besides the majority of so-called ‘Japanese’, there are Ainu people whose roots are mainly in Hokkaido, and people from Okinawa. They have their own cultural backgrounds and are fully Japanese.
When we speak of ‘ethnic groups’, we should consider the term from a number of perspectives.
Just a quick thought brings up the following perspectives;
Language
Historical background
Cultural aspects
Religion
Genetic and biological aspects
I would like to talk about this issue from a genetic perspective.
I actually took a genetic test.
The test tells me everything about myself from a genetic aspect.
For example, I got more than 100 genetic facts, such as that I am prone to anxiety, that I have excellent endurance, that I have a lot of genes in common with Neanderthals for an Asian. In other words, to the researchers, they could see everything about me, haha.
The test results included a section on ‘my ancestry’.
According to this, my paternal genes are shared with Tibetans. Tibetans are mostly found in the south-western part of what is now the People’s Republic of China. My matrilineal genes are derived from various ethnic groups around the Sea of Okhotsk. In other words, it is a gene that I share with the Ainu people, a small ethnic group in Hokkaido, Japan. On a wider scale, the ethnic minorities of the Russian Far East are also of this origin.
Red circles are areas with a large Tibetan population. The blue box is the area around the Sea of Okhotsk where various ethnic groups live. Of course, they do not only live in this area.
I was honestly surprised to learn that my matrilineal roots originated from various ethnic groups around the Sea of Okhotsk. Perhaps it was fate that I spent a year in Russia as a student. No, it’s irrelevant.
So much for silly jokes and my story.
The roots of the Japanese are not concentrated in Tibet or around the Sea of Okhotsk like mine.
After all, it is a fact that many people have strong commonalities with the Han Chinese and Koreans, while other Japanese have roots in South-East Asian countries and Polynesia.
I will not draw any conclusions from this, but I feel that it would be a good opportunity for Japanese people to look outside the country.
This is because the current passport acquisition rate for Japanese is less than 20%. Isn’t this unfortunate?
