15. The Ninja’s Origins Are Chinese
The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles may have originated in the underground netherworld of New York City, but real ninjas actually have their origin in imperial China, with fighting practices having been imported from places like Tibet and India. In the seventh century CE, Japan was undergoing rapid changes that consolidated power and wealth among the Japanese elite in a feudal system, not unlike that of Medieval Europe. Wealthy European lords had knights to protect their manors and holdings; the Japanese had the samurai. After a period of revolt and political instability, the samurai amassed enough power for themselves to establish the shogunate or military state.
In response to the oppression of the samurai, the ninja began to evolve. In the 10th century in China, the Tang dynasty in China collapsed, and many elites fled to Japan. They brought with them fighting styles from people like Sun Tzu, the famous military general who authored The Art of War. A century later saw the arrival of Chinese monks in Japan, who also brought their own fighting philosophies. The emerging class of ninja fighters adopted many of these ideas. This notion stands in contradiction to the Japanese folklore that ninjas descended from a half-man, half-cow demon.