At the turn of the 2oth century human beings are confronted with huge crises, which in the late 20th century have brought about a worldwide fever of 'root-seeking' literature. The neighboring Japan began a new phase of cultural 'seeking-root' in China. In late 1970s, a Japanese scholar hypothesized that "Japanese were originated" in China's Yunnan province, and in the 1980s and 90s, a 'hypothesis of ethnic Yi origin' had focused researchers' attention. Japanese cultural root-seeking was previously an endeavor to look for the origin of 'Japanese Nationality'; against such a backdrop, a host of ethnic Yi and Japanese cross-cultural and comparative research results have been obtained. Through characteristic analyses of the cross-cultural and comparative study on ethnic Yi and Japanese people, we propose that, in the setting of globalization, a cross-cultural and comparative research through image-recording method beyond traditional text records would become a future trend.