 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Hello my name is Nitta Fumiteru.
I’ve been retired for 5 years now
and I’m just enjoying my life now.
My name is Sato Ayaka
I was raised in Okayama and I’m 27 now.
I teach English to kids now.
My name is Tsunesada Taeko.
I was raised in Okayama
and I do various jobs but I mostly do accounting
and teach English to kids in the evening.
No.
In my case my grandparents were all adopted.
So we don't really know our lineage beyond them.
Each grandparent was adopted under different circumstances.
OK, so I'm...
 
So I’m 88.1% Japanese/Korean
6.7% Chinese/Vietnamese
3.8% Central Asia
and 1.4% Finland
 
87.4% Japanese/Korean
10.8% Chinese/Vietnamese
and we jump to 1.8% Finland
99.2% Chinese
and then .8% European/mix
My background is a bit unique
 
My grandfather likely came from the Fujian
area of China, and immigrated to Taiwan,
where my parents were born.
I have three siblings and we were all born in Osaka, Japan.
On the large scale of things
each generation in our family has immigrated.
From Fujian to Taiwan,
Taiwan to Japan,
And actually I'm currently a U.S. citizen.
I live in Okayama now but
until 25 years ago I lived in Hawaii.
I actually immigrated to Hawaii back then.
That's when got U.S. citizenship.
In terms of my daughter,
well my mother had quite strong features
and my daughter resembles her the most
so she looks the most Japanese.
My oldest son looks almost Middle-Eastern.
And my middle child looks very Euruopean/Italian
So if I walk around with my middle child and daughter
I look like some high-schooler's dorm mother or something
I'm like, "No, no, I gave birth to him too!"
Because they look so different from each other.
Growing up, there weren't any half Japanese kids in my area.
So since I looked half-Japanese, people would say, "You're lucky".
Since a lot of Japanese admire the strong features of foreigners.
Because Japanese typically have soft features.
So more often than not I was praised for how I looked.
But I'm Japanese, so if I were actually half-Japanese
I'm sure I would have experienced problems growing up.
Since you're a "real" Japanese
People just commented on how cute you are.
Right so I just got complements.
I really just got the rewards of looking different.
The European lineage surprised me.
 
This doesn't apply to just Japan,
but also in Germany with the Nazis,
this concept of a "pure" race.
But there is no "pure-blooded" human.
Everyone's roots are in Africa.
And we've mixed around everywhere.
So there is no "pure" lineage.
That's why even though it's a small percentage,
we have distant cousins in Europe.
Quite a surprise, but you too?
Yep, third cousins.
Third cousins are quite distant, but family nonetheless.
 
And I'm coincidentally a U.S. citizen
 
but among the western DNA results
my U.S. roots were the strongest.
My third cousins in the U.S.
Looking at the pool of DNA test participants,
most of them are from North America and Europe
but there are very few Japanese taking this test.
Why do you think that is?
Well our parents don't really do anything like this,
so I never even thought about it before.
Thoughts about "where did we come from?"
If my parents had had interest in our family tree
then maybe I would have had interest too.
But that initial interest was never there.
So I never even had an image of a family tree.
I told my friends about the results
But my parents just said, "Why do you want to take a DNA test?"
Oh really?
That's really interesting!
So they said that, and I explained that it was for a video
and that it seemed interesting.
I'm always called half-Japanese
so I thought, "Maybe there is some foreign blood in me!"
And there actually was!
Yep, even some central Asian.
If we go with what we know historically,
Japan is an ethnically homogenous island country.
But we're talking before all that.
Japanese history starts with
The Yamato race
Right, it always starts with the Yamato race and continues as Japan from then on.
I think that one factor in that belief
is that Japanese historians are intentionally keep that ambiguous.
Even if they say the Yamato race,
Japan is an island nation,
so there were no natives on this island.
Everyone immigrated from somewhere.
So historians haven't made it crystal clear what happened before Japan was established.
We know where the Yamato people originated from.
Mostly South East Asia
So the Japanese are mostly South East Asian
and mainland Chinese and Korean in ethnicity.
So we are in effect
Half (mixed)!
 
Hybrids.
The fact that historians don't make that crystal clear,
may be because there are still people who believe in a "pure" Japanese race.
The starting point in all our history books in school is...
the Yamato race.
Right, we're either descendants of the Yayoi or Jomon people.
No one talks about what happened before that.
We never think about it.
But that's what's really important.
I don't think it's important to be genetically Japanese,
but Japanese culture
Mentality
Yes, mentality and culture should be preserved
while our skin color or facial features become diverse
is the most interesting outcome
I mean I'm sorry but if an Italian
starts eating pineapple pizza
I'll get depressed.
I want Italians to be Italian
and Japanese to be Japanese too.
Sorry.
A country's given culture or cultural diversity is definitely key.
It's important to preserve those people's thoughts and values
But also taking in what's different
And that's occurring in popular culture now in Japan.
Until now if you said "Japanese" you would think
of a person with Asian facial features.
Japanese, Chinese, and Koreans would often get misidentified.
But recently, especially in sports or on TV,
people like Osaka Naomi or Cambridge (Aska)
especially Japanese-African American people
look much different in skin color and facial structure to typical Japanese people.
So the more these types of individuals represent Japan,
Bit by bit, more Japanese people start to recognize that,
"Oh these types of people are also Japanese".
and they can start to accept that fact.
I think we're headed in that direction.
Right, so we can't tell anymore just from looks.
We'll start to judge people by their spirit or personalities.
 
I'd like more Japanese people to get DNA tests done
so they can realize that there's a lot of
different types of bloodlines running through them.
If they understand that
I think a lot of Japanese will change their outlook on themselves.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
