How much of Japan's traditional culture comes from China ?

[pipokun]

This is a nice thread. But you can find millions of other influence from other cultures.

What do you think the things which Japanese refused to accept such as eunuch or whatever? What I am most interested in the J culure or history right now is the period when Japanese physically or politically restricted the influence of other cultures.

[Maciamo]

This is a nice thread. But you can find millions of other influence from other cultures.

Alright, I am waiting for the list (let's start at 2 million items then). Don't forget that this is about "traditional" Japanese culture, so before Meiji.

[pipokun]

Well, I like your trivia-like threads, you know much more than avarage Japanese threads, but honestly all I can say is "you know them well. nothing more, nothing less".

What about the genome sequence of Japanese?

[miles7tp]

How much of Japan's traditional culture comes from China ?

Whenever I read such a question, I ask myself, "What is he aiming at ?".
On the earth, can we find "the pure culture" which has never been influenced by the other culture ?
I am so fool high school student that I cannot find "the pure culture" in the world.

A new culture originates in encounter between the different cultures. It is brought up with the tender care for a long time and becomes a highly developed culture.

If you are interested in cross-cultural comparison between Japan and China, I will advise you to read the books written by Wang Min王敏.

“意”の文化と“情”の文化―中国における日本研究 中公叢書
http://www.amazon.co.jp/exec/obidos/...779759-6113064

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It is said that in ancient times there were 4 culture areas in the world.
Old Japan related to the Chinese culture area.
(Chinese culture is also made by many different ethnic cultures.)
Some yearly events in Japan originated in encounter between old Japanese culture and old Chinese culture. They were imported as events of the court life and transformed the characters in Japan. Today, They are different from Chinese ones.

[Maciamo]

On the earth, can we find "the pure culture" which has never been influenced by the other culture ?
I am so fool high school student that I cannot find "the pure culture" in the world.

Chinese, Indian or Arabic cultures are quite "pure" if you ask me. If you take all Europe as one culture (without looking at inter-linguistic differences like in India or China), then it is also quite pure. Only a tiny percentage of the whole culture comes from another, completely different culture. We could argue that Christianity is the single biggest cultural import of European civilisation - except if you consider the Hebrew culture as part of European civiliation (after all, most Jews in the world lived in Europe before Israel was re-created in 1947).

Anyway, I was just wondering how much was "original" and how much was "imported". European culture clearly grew out of the Greco-Roman civilisation. It seems to me that Japan grew as much of the Ancient Chinese civilisation as modern China, Korea or Vietnam. The roots are mostly the same, and these cultures now have more similarities than differences.

[lexico]

This is an exciting field of study that deserves continued attention. There would be two approaches possible, 1) that of micro-historical study tracing all parallels and possible origins to culminate in a macroscopic overview of the specific cultural item evolving and inventing in the natural course or historical development, 2) that of conspired inventions that were cooked up during the later periods of the contending nation-states as Eric Hobsbawm and Terrence Ranger analyse in their coedited work, The Invention of Traditions (Canto S. 1983, 1992, 328 pages).

Out of a dialectic examination of the two approaches, a more solid perpsective of national-ethnic culture can be obtained; this is thoroughly exciting line of research to pursue, not necessarily aimed at "bashing" any one particular culture; identical studies should be applied to all cultures that "boast of long-held traditions of their glorious past." Although the relativist tendency of post-modernist studies are not altogether to be accepted, it is here with us to enrich our understanding, with anthropology and archeology giving stimulating new finds to supplement our historical tunnel vision all the time.

Fascinating subject, uneven quality

The re-issue in paperback by a general publisher of an academic work originally from the CUP is a rare event. But even the original edition cast a sidelong eye at the general public, who might be willing to bear with academic minutiae for the sake of its astonishing revelations (to all but professional historians) on a subject they thought they knew about.

If you're going to write an academic work, footnotes and all, for the "educated layman", you'd better be a good writer, lively and stylish, as well as a good academic. From that point of view, the essays in this collection are very uneven, ranging from the occasionally tongue-in-cheek polish of Hugh Trevor-Roper (on the invention of the Highland Tradition in Scotland) to the convoluted and occasionally asyntactic sentences of Prys Morgan (on "the hunt for the Welsh past"). The one invites you on an enthralling voyage of discovery, the other requires you to wade through a viscous Sargasso Sea. Nonetheless, both journeys are well worth undertaking, as are the others in the collection.

But perhaps the most valuable aspect of the book is that it encourages us to reflect in general, quite aside from the specific examples studied, on the human need for a link to the past and evidence of superiority, if not now, then at least in a prior Golden Age. If human communities divide the world into "them" and "us", how do they define who "we" are? And what makes "us" special? On the lines of Voltaire's famous comment that "if God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him." we are forced to the conclusion that if a national history and culture do not exist, it is necessary to invent them. (A process traced also by Y. Nevo and myself in our study of the early history of the Umayyad State).

It appears that the need to define one's community as valid -- by reference to an historic past -- is most acute when that community is only just established or is in decline. The lessons of this book should be kept in mind when reading the history of any nation.

[miles7tp]

Chinese, Indian or Arabic cultures are quite "pure" if you ask me.

If you study Chinese history, you can find that some different ethnic people ruled China by turns.

Undoubtedly ancient Chinese culture deeply influenced on old Asian culture.
Similarly, undoubtedly "ancient Greek culture", "ancient Egyptian culture", "ancient Roman culture" and "Islamic culture" made the base of European cultures.
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.

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.
Do you believe European people could develop "ancient Roman culture" but Asian people could NOT develop "ancient Chinese culture" for a long time ?

It seems to me that Japan grew as much of the Ancient Chinese civilisation as modern China, Korea or Vietnam. The roots are mostly the same, and these cultures now have more similarities than differences.

I advise you to study Asian history and culture harder.
And you will be able to notice diversity of Asian cultures.

[Haivart]

Chinese, Indian or Arabic cultures are quite "pure" if you ask me.

No, Indian culture is not "pure" -- whatever that means. Are you referring to the north or the south? Before the Aryan migration, or after? Before Islam, or after? And neither is Arabic, even with the influence of Islam.

[Maciamo]

No, Indian culture is not "pure" -- whatever that means. Are you referring to the north or the south? Before the Aryan migration, or after? Before Islam, or after? And neither is Arabic, even with the influence of Islam.

But still "quite" pure (not completely of course). I meant after the Aryan invasion as before that civilisation wasn't really India. It was even purer before the arrival of Islam, but only 12% of India's population is now Muslim, despite the numerous monuments left by former rulers. Anyhow, we can safely say that the Muslim architecture of India is original and "Indian" enough to be different from other Muslim countries. It's not like China, Korea and Japan where it is sometimes hars to tell from a picture from which country is a Buddhist temple.

For me religion itself is not "culture"; it is the local culture that fashions religion to fit the mindset of the local population. This can several centuries, but eventually one same religion splits in various branches and is practised differently in different culturl areas. That's why "Christianity" does not have the same meaning at all for American and Europeans, and between them, for Catholics, Anglicans, Protestants and Orthodox. One thing unique about India is the number of religion that sprang from its original culture, including Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and even Sikhism by fusion with Islam. What makes it "pure" or "unique" is that 3 of these 4 religions are almost exclusively found in India (emigrants notwithstanding, of course), and we could also add the Zoroastrian, originally from Persia, but only found in India (and Pakistan and Sri Lanka) nowadays.

Then, if you have been to India, you know it's a totally different place from almost anywhere else in the world. East Asian and South-East Asian countries share a lot in common, so that while in Japan you sometimes feel like it could be Thailand or China. I have never felt like I was on a different planet in East Asia, while I did in India (and only in India, not even Nepal). Maybe that is because India has resisted "cultural westernisation" more than East Asian countries. It has kept its 5000-yera old class system well alive, while Japan got rid of its 250-year old class system in the late 19th century. No McDonalds, no Italian or Chinese restaurants, almost no clothes, food, cars or other consumer products imported from Western countries... That's in this regard that I saw Indian culture as "purer" than Japan's, or that of most other countries in the world. The only major cultural import from India is cricket, and it has almost died out in its country of origin...

We could try and make a list of cultural stuff imported by India, but apart from a bit if Islam and Christianity, and cricket (which are really leftovers of invasions and colonisation, rather than "imports"), there isn't much...