How Did China Influence Japanese Society
For a major part in Japanese history, the Chinese influenced and shaped Japanese society. As an axial civilisation, meaning civilisations that created an overarching framework for other civilisations to follow, China was the main source of institutional and ideological change. As Jansen (1989: 11) succinctly puts:
Unlike Palestine, Greece, and Rome, which influenced modern Europe, China continued present and powerful. For Japan, it served as a classical antiquity, a Renaissance Italy, and an eighteenth-century France all in one. It was a single cultural colossus, one that endured.
This remark from Jansen (1989) not only draws attention to the important position China occupied but also to the cultural hegemony the Chinese held in Japan. More
Unlike Palestine, Greece, and Rome, which influenced modern Europe, China continued present and powerful. For Japan, it served as a classical antiquity, a Renaissance Italy, and an eighteenth-century France all in one. It was a single cultural colossus, one that endured.
This remark from Jansen (1989) not only draws attention to the important position China occupied but also to the cultural hegemony the Chinese held in Japan. More