Believe it or not, there are still NINJAS in Japan.  But they AREN'T sneaking around  covered in black, using throwing stars to assassinate people, then disappearing in the blink of an eye.  Jinichi Kawakami is the head of one of Japan's original ninja families.  He's fully trained in all the traditional ninja skills.  But he doesn't use them very often.

Because today, he says, "you cannot make a living being a ninja."  He has an engineering degree and a full-time day job.  And all of his fellow ninjas do too.  He says ninjas basically have had to work since the feudal period ended and feudal lords stopped hiring ninjas as assassins.  "Some were farmers.  Others were peddlers who used their day job to spy."

Also, he says the stories of ninjas being able to skip across water or vanish before you can blink are exaggerated.  "No matter how much you train, ninjas are still human beings." 

(Marketplace.org)