Japanese person

Japanese persons (日本人, nihon'-jin or nippon-jin) are those who typically speak Japanese language, are born in Japan and live, age, and die in Japan with Japanese citizenship and name. Very few are originally from outside Japan. The identity as ethnic Japanese and race is very little.

Japanese has coherent looking; they usually have black hair and brown eyes and compared with the Westerners, shorter and thinner.

The question who are Japanese persons is tricky. A number of ethnic Korean born and living in Japan regared themselves as Koreans not Japanese. It is partly because their citizenship is not Japanese. Other minorities have ambivalent feelings. People in Okinawa may distinguish themselves from people in mainland Japan. Ainu, a very few native race living in Hokkaido may keep their identity just like the way native Americans in U.S. do.

The origin of Japanese persons is a controversial topic among ethnologists. The most accepted theory is that about half of Japanese are from China via the South path and the other half are from the Mongol via the North path.

Jap is a slang with strong prejudiced connotation. Japanese have a strong sense of isolationism and social cohesion, refering to foreigners as "gai-jin" (outside person).

See also: Ethnic issues in Japan and Japanese-American.