Im sure everyone knows japan was where ninjas originated but what about china. Ive seen masked warriors who are so much like the japanese ninja, they wear dark or black clothes during the night, they sneak around, and they use small projectiles which are chinese.
The monks of the Shaolin temples are generally the ones that inspire the amazing feats in Chinese stories and movies. They can do some pretty incredible things like in the movies (cant really fly though) and even though they are religious, they have also fought in battles throughout history.
I agree with Catyehc(though Jian is a name of a Chinese sword), sotto guardia, and Fishless. They may not have been called shinobi or ninja, but the Chinese masked assassins basically were. There is legend of a Chinese Buddhist monk(Shaolin) spreading techniques to proto-ninjas in Japan, and also of whole clans of people leaving China in the Song Dynasty to move to the mountains of Japan which may have started ninjutsu. Even more recently, there have been Japanese ninjas that moved to China in the Qing Dynasty to hone their skills.
The best answer by Natalie is almost as bad as Elena Ss
Personally though, if they wear dark or black clothes at night, sneak around at night and use projectiles, i would call the cops and/or beat the crap out of them, they are called thieves.
Japanese Ninjas were based off Chinese imperial assassins.
The word Ninja only meant for those Japanese Ninjas.
Some examples
Skip to 6:26 (nope, the assassins will not show up for another 15 seconds, but start watch at 6:26)
http://www.youtube.com/watchv=HvGj3nVoLC0