Quote Originally Posted by kaerupop
If you study Chinese history, you can find that some different ethnic people ruled China by turns.
Really ? The Mongols and Manchu only came in the 14th and 17th centuries. That's not "ancient history". In English (or European languages), "ancient" refers to the Antiquity, which ended with the fall of the Roman Empire in the 5th century. After that and until the 15th century, it is the "medieval" period.

You enthusiastically find a point in common between Japan and China. But in a point in common you will be able to find a cultural gap.
So what ? If there was no cultural gap, China and Japan would be the same nation. It is clearly not the case. Not more than France, Germany, Italy or Spain have the same culture. My point is that the differences between European cultures are similar to the differences between East Asian countries. We could even say that French, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese are at the same level as the various Chinese linguistic groups (Mandarin, Cantonese, Wu, Hokkien, Hakka...), while Japanese would be like English (both being hybrid languages). Mongolian and Manchurian would be more like Scandinavian languages, and Korean like German.

I don't want to think that you disregard the difference between Japan and China. If you do so, you will never understand Asian cultures. I don't want you to look down on Asian cultures.
Did I disregard the differences between Japan and China. I could list dozens of differences, mainly in the way of thinking. Yet, it's interesting to see that a lot of the objects, clothes, festivals, beliefs, social systems, etc. in Japan came from China, the same way as the old Greco-Roman system (Latin alphabet, festivals, technologies...) spread to areas that were never in the Roman Empire, like Ireland, Scotland, Scandinavia or Northern Germany.

Do you believe European people could develop "ancient Roman culture" but Asian people could NOT develop "ancient Chinese culture" for a long time ?
What does this sentence mean ?

I advise you to study Asian history and culture harder.
And you will be able to notice diversity of Asian cultures.
I don't need to study more to know that. Maybe it is you who does not understand the cultural differences between European cultures. It's obvious that an English person and an Italian, or a Finn and a Greek have very little in common in terms of way of thinking and working. Likewise, the Chinese and Japanese think quite differently. But the system, fundamental values, clothing style, technologies, etc. have evolved together in all European countries, while the have also evolved at the same time in North-East Asian countries. When a new political or economic system was developed somewhere in Europe, the rest followed. Artistic current (Romanesque, Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque, Classical, Romantic...) changed at about the same time in all Europe for architecture, painting, fashion or music. Likewise, new technologies or artistic styles in China spread to Vietnam, Korea and Japan (rarely the other way though, since China looked down on its neighbours). I would say that the main difference is that most of the "new stuff" in Asia came from China, while in Europe it could come from any region (although mostly Italy, France, the Netherlands, Germany and Britain) as no country was big and powerful enough to look down on all others. I guess that's because of the different geographical divsion of Europe and East Asia.

I also wanted to show that countries like Indonesia, Malaysia, Cambodia or Myanmar do not really belong to this "East Asian" group. They were much less influenced by China, and maybe more by India. They first followed Theravada Buddhism, as opposed to Mahayama Buddhism in China, Korea, Japan and Vietnam. They also adopted Hinduism, then Indonesia and Malaysia converted to Islam when the Muslims ruled Moghul India. These countries also did not inherit most of the Chinese inventions and traditions listed above.