I kindly disagree with you, the Japanese are an incredible and resilient people
Japan is indeed an
incredible nation. However, over the past thousand years or so, without China’s influence in almost every aspect, Japan would not be what it is today.
Among these influences, the introduction of
Chinese characters had the greatest impact on Japan, transforming many aspects of Japanese society, including cultural transmission, record-keeping, communication, institutionalization, and language development, as outlined below.
█ 1. Basic Functions
◉ Record-keeping: The introduction of Chinese characters enabled Japan to preserve its history, knowledge, and administrative information, including historical records, laws and regulations, household registers, and diplomatic documents.
◉ Communication: Beyond their use within Japan, Chinese characters also became a shared written medium in parts of East Asia, facilitating international diplomacy, academic exchange, and religious interaction.
█ 2. Social Aspects
◉ Institutionalization: The introduction of Chinese characters helped the Japanese government formulate, promulgate, and preserve laws and regulations, supporting the establishment and operation of a centralized government, bureaucratic system, and administrative institutions.
◉ Education: This gave rise to an education system centered on the Chinese classics and Classical Chinese, producing an intellectual class of officials, Buddhist monks, and literati.
█ 3. Linguistic Aspects
◉ Writing system: Initially, Japan borrowed Chinese characters to write Japanese. Over time, hiragana and katakana gradually developed, eventually forming a writing system of its own.
◉ Vocabulary and concepts: Chinese characters enriched the Japanese vocabulary and expanded Japan’s ability to express abstract ideas and concepts in politics, law, and academia.
█ 4. Cultural Aspects
◉ Transmission of knowledge: The introduction of Chinese characters meant that knowledge no longer had to rely solely on oral transmission. Knowledge of history, medicine, calendars, craftsmanship, folk customs, and other subjects could be recorded, preserved, and passed down through writing.
◉ Literature and the arts: Japan subsequently adopted forms of literary and artistic expression such as Chinese poetry, Classical Chinese prose, and calligraphy, promoting and broadening the development of its own literature and arts.
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Other major Chinese influences on Japan included the introduction of Confucian thought, architecture, clothing, institutions, food (such as soy sauce, tofu, ramen, and matcha), and more...
I would not say that the Japanese people would have been barbarians without China. However, without China,
who knows how much longer Japan would have continued tying knots to keep records?
Japan is indeed an incredible nation, but compared with China, Japan is merely an incredible student and imitator.
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On a related note, setting mainland China aside for a moment, if we were to identify Asia’s representative advanced economies, why would Taiwan (ROC), Japan, and South Korea generally come to mind?
All three belong to the Sinosphere and the Confucian cultural sphere.
And you should know where Chinese characters and Confucian culture originated, who created them, and which nation is more incredible.
▼▼▼ Regarding the relationship between the Japanese writing system and Chinese characters, I have already posted a related comment on this topic. Please refer to the link below.
https://defencepk.com/forums/thread...maybe-nationalism-too.574/page-7#post-1419904 (
#104)
▼▼▼ Japanese kanji can basically be said to be Chinese characters. If kanji were removed from Japanese, the Japanese writing system would collapse.
The Japanese characters (kanji) marked in red are 100% identical to Chinese characters (Traditional or Simplified).
The Japanese characters (kanji) marked in green have only undergone slight changes to their strokes, but a Chinese person can immediately tell which Chinese character they originated from.
【商社マンは世界をこう読む】５つの潮流と日本の生存戦略／アメリカファーストはトランプ後も続く／中国の対米依存脱却戦略／日本と欧州の停滞は不可避／インフレは構造的問題／日本はこの潮流をどう逆手とるか
