As the knowledge of Chinese culture began to pile upon in Japan there arose the increasing problem of how to integrate the new elements into Japanese life. The earlier solutions were to adapt it wholesale, but slowly Japanese became sufficiently skillful in the manipulation of Chinese culture traits to be able to discriminate between the merely new and the really useful aspects of Chinese traits. Not only was this process operative among the political leaders of Japan who dropped out features they did not like, but it gradually became applied throughout the whole range of Japanese life. In the mild climate of southern Japan the domestic architecture of North China was hardly necessary, and its strictly utilitarian features were too subdued to appeal to the Japanese. Slowly there evolved several distinctive Japanese housetypes, variably using movable panel walls, designed to let in light and sun, clean floors and mats, and a minimum of furniture reminiscent of southeastern Asia. Taken from Chinese patterns, Japanese housing still resembles its origins in many respects, but it is distinctively different.
Japanese agriculture basically resembles that of China in many respects, but it has developed its own distinctive methods, tools, and customs. The early arts of Japan closely resemble those of China, but gradually there have evolved subtle distinctions that often are hard for the occidental to recognize but that the educated Chinese and Japanese know well. This holds true in painting, sculpture, literature, drama, and the whole range of decorative and utilitarian arts. It holds true for many of the social customs, such as the ceremonial greeting, for dietary habits, such as the use of tea as a national drink, for the patterns of clothing, and many other elements of culture. In all these things the Japanese have slowly modified the basic elements into something peculiarly Japanese.
The process of converting Chinese cultural examples into Japanese customs and material developments was not done rapidly. The earliest elements in this adaptation of Chinese culture came early during the period when the Japanese were still consciously studying Chinese affairs. The most distinctive transformations, of course, came in the centuries after the Japanese had stopped observing China, and were independently living their own lives. The culture historian is apt to classify the centuries between about A.D. 900 and A.D. 1400 as the most important era of activity in the field of cultural transformation. The political historian is apt to divide the time span between about A.D. 800 and A.D. 1550 into two eras in which he first distinguishes the attempt to install a system of political nationalism and, second, the development of feudalism in Japan after about A.D. 1000.
In the sixth century A.D. the Japanese already were pushing northward beyond the Inland Sea and into the edges of the hill country of central Japan. As their culture developed more and more, and their population increased, the contrasts between the southern peoples and the aboriginal population of the north and the hill country heightened. There began a process of expansion northward out of the hearth that can be likened to the expansion of the seaboard American colonies westward across the United States. It was a slower process, and it involved different kinds of issues, but there are similarities. The Japanese had to fight their way northward against a stubborn resistance on the part of the hunting and gathering aboriginals who did not want to see their hunting ranges turned into farmlands. There developed a professional soldiery on the frontier who resembled the American "Indian fighter," settlers often found their advance locations raided, and forts and a frontier force of farmer-soldiery were employed. Some Japanese left the settled areas for various reasons and took up residence among the Ainu, often inciting them to resistance. By the end of the eighth century the lowlands well north of modern Tokyo had been cleared of Ainu, and considerable settlement by southerners had taken place. During the eighth and ninth centuries the Japanese pushed steadily northward, slowly learning the military techniques required to conquer the Ainu. By the end of the ninth century the strength of the Ainu had been broken, though groups remained in the uplands to bother the Japanese for another century or more. Some intermarriage steadily introduced Ainu blood and physical types into the Japanese people.
The Ainu had been a hunting and gathering people who lived along the shores of the islands and used the lowland interior regions that provided fish, game, and some plant resources. In the north country they found little in the mountain country of value, and increasingly found their range of support reduced as the southerners conquered the coasts and lowlands. Ainu had also inhabited the shores of Hokkaido for a long period, and some of them retreated to Hokkaido when dispossessed on Honshu. In Hokkaido, however, the upland country was largely barren of resources useful to hunters and gatherers, and the Ainu stuck to the coastal fringes and some of the more open lowland areas. In taking over Ainu territory the southerners found little developed land upon which to base their own occupation. They faced a forested environment with a cooler climate having few directly useful land resources to begin with. Their occupation of the north country, therefore, was a slow matter of clearing forests, developing fields on rough surfaces, changing their crops, and finding short-season varieties of crop plants that would mature in the cooler, shorter growing seasons.
Throughout northern Honshu, therefore, settlement and resource development was slow. Many Japanese settlements came to depend more upon fishing than upon agriculture. In many respects the southern people moving northward did not basically alter their southern patterns of culture. Housetypes, clothing, food patterns, customs, and habits remained much the same. The northern, colder parts of Honshu were slow to fill up with settlers, many of whom found this northern country unattractive in comparison to the milder portions of southern Japan. It was almost A.D. 1400 before most of the easily settled land of northern Honshu was occupied.
Showing posts with label Chinese culture. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Chinese culture. Show all posts
Japanese culture similarities Chinese culture
Japanese culture possesses many similarities to the culture of China, some of which trace back to introductions before the Christian era. And during the early centuries of the Christian era, when the southern peoples were making their first real advances in civilization, many Chinese traits were taken up in an unconscious pattern of acceptance. This hit-and-miss learning process went on until the late sixth century. By then Japanese leaders appreciated the value of Chinese culture, appeared to realize that their knowledge was incomplete, and set out to broaden their contacts and patterns of learning. Early in the seventh century Japanese leaders despatched commissions to the Chinese court that compare with the modern system of organized despatch of students abroad to centers of learning. The best educated young Japanese were selected to study all possible aspects of Chinese culture. Some remained in China for many years and upon their return to Japan became leaders in a program of "modernization," as it were, that spread elements of Chinese culture throughout southern Japan. All manner of subjects were studied, from Buddhist theology to city planning, from painting to manufacturing. This constituted an enormous program of cultural borrowing, but the learning can hardly be called mere copying, for it had to be integrated into a whole and blended with the elements of native existing culture. And the very organized manner of approaching the problem was far in advance of any process of cultural development in vogue elsewhere.
The whole program perhaps evolved because China had just begun to blossom again into one of its high periods of development. The Sui had begun to organize North China into one state, and the T'ang were just completing the task of making China the greatest empire in the world at that time, politically and culturally. The Japanese thus were able to study China during one of its best periods, when Chinese culture perhaps stood foremost among the world's cultures. But another significant element in the picture was the fact that administrative power in Japan was already sufficiently centralized in the hands of a small group of leaders for a major program of action to be decided upon and carried into effect without a long period of debate or struggle. It is important to note this early illustration of the far-reaching results of the decisions of a small number of people, Japanese leaders at a particular point of time, because it is a phenomenon that has occurred repeatedly throughout Japanese culture history.
The first cultural missions to China were so successful that they were repeated rather continuously for over two centuries. By the middle of the ninth century official sponsorship for study of China came to an end, though privately the process continued for almost two centuries longer in lesser degree. By the latter part of the ninth century the T'ang were declining in China, and perhaps there was less to learn that could be of use to the leaders of Japan. This long period of study made the leaders of Japan familiar with the workings of Chinese civilization and spread Chinese culture traits throughout those parts of Japan inhabited by the peoples spreading out of the southern hearth region.
The impact of Chinese culture showed up in many ways. In the early eighth century the Japanese set out to build an imperial capital city of Nara, off the Inland Sea, which they modeled upon the great T'ang capital of Ch'ang-an. Grid-plan streets were laid out, buildings were built in the Chinese style, functional zoning was applied, and the city had come to stay. The matriarchal society of early Japan finally disappeared in favor of the patriarchal system of China, and the social status of women became permanently altered. The tribal and clan leaders saw utility in the nationalized political system of China, topped by an emperor, and so they installed it and in so doing rewrote Japanese history to give the system an ancient status. But the leaders of Japan could not bring themselves to install the full pattern of Chinese education, the examination, and the civil service, which would have meant throwing open to all Japanese the opportunities for political power. Thus they kept alive the clan system which facilitated the preservation of real power in the hands of hereditary leaders. Similarly they reorganized the land system and systems of taxation, but in the end let the land system of China degenerate, while keeping the tax system, so as more effectively to consolidate power in the hands of the few.
Japanese religion grew into a mixture of Buddhism and native animism, but the study of Chinese Buddhism was serious and it became an important element drawn from China. Chinese art, handicraft manufacturing, and agriculture were studied and adapted so far as practical and possible. Here there was less danger to real power in the hands of leaders if a full application of Chinese practices took place. A farreaching item that was taken from China was the written language, but the results have been less than satisfactory. At the time of earliest contact with Chinese culture no system of writing was known in Japan, but the spoken languages were polysyllabic. Chinese is a monosyllabic language easily written by single ideographs or characters. The first writing employed in Japan was Chinese, written by people brought from Korea. These immigrant scholars became the first recorders of Japanese historiography, the first scribes, and bookkeepers. Slowly the Japanese learned this complex system of writing, and it gradually became the written language of Japan. The grafting of a monosyllabic writing onto a polysyllabic speech resulted in a cumbersome system that never has been outgrown.
Though the adapting of only a few features of Chinese culture have been discussed, it must be obvious that the process involved selective adaptation rather than indiscriminate imitation. A close study of Japanese culture in this period suggests that a clear imprint of Chinese culture was spread throughout much of Japan with the result that Japanese culture is modeled upon that of China. But it is equally discernible that slavish copying was never permitted in many lines and that the leaders of Japan were extremely skillful in checking those trends which would have truly converted Japan into a little China in all respects. Chiefly the checks were applied at those points which preserved in the hands of the old line of Japanese leaders the power, wealth, and control of Japan.
The whole program perhaps evolved because China had just begun to blossom again into one of its high periods of development. The Sui had begun to organize North China into one state, and the T'ang were just completing the task of making China the greatest empire in the world at that time, politically and culturally. The Japanese thus were able to study China during one of its best periods, when Chinese culture perhaps stood foremost among the world's cultures. But another significant element in the picture was the fact that administrative power in Japan was already sufficiently centralized in the hands of a small group of leaders for a major program of action to be decided upon and carried into effect without a long period of debate or struggle. It is important to note this early illustration of the far-reaching results of the decisions of a small number of people, Japanese leaders at a particular point of time, because it is a phenomenon that has occurred repeatedly throughout Japanese culture history.
The first cultural missions to China were so successful that they were repeated rather continuously for over two centuries. By the middle of the ninth century official sponsorship for study of China came to an end, though privately the process continued for almost two centuries longer in lesser degree. By the latter part of the ninth century the T'ang were declining in China, and perhaps there was less to learn that could be of use to the leaders of Japan. This long period of study made the leaders of Japan familiar with the workings of Chinese civilization and spread Chinese culture traits throughout those parts of Japan inhabited by the peoples spreading out of the southern hearth region.
The impact of Chinese culture showed up in many ways. In the early eighth century the Japanese set out to build an imperial capital city of Nara, off the Inland Sea, which they modeled upon the great T'ang capital of Ch'ang-an. Grid-plan streets were laid out, buildings were built in the Chinese style, functional zoning was applied, and the city had come to stay. The matriarchal society of early Japan finally disappeared in favor of the patriarchal system of China, and the social status of women became permanently altered. The tribal and clan leaders saw utility in the nationalized political system of China, topped by an emperor, and so they installed it and in so doing rewrote Japanese history to give the system an ancient status. But the leaders of Japan could not bring themselves to install the full pattern of Chinese education, the examination, and the civil service, which would have meant throwing open to all Japanese the opportunities for political power. Thus they kept alive the clan system which facilitated the preservation of real power in the hands of hereditary leaders. Similarly they reorganized the land system and systems of taxation, but in the end let the land system of China degenerate, while keeping the tax system, so as more effectively to consolidate power in the hands of the few.
Japanese religion grew into a mixture of Buddhism and native animism, but the study of Chinese Buddhism was serious and it became an important element drawn from China. Chinese art, handicraft manufacturing, and agriculture were studied and adapted so far as practical and possible. Here there was less danger to real power in the hands of leaders if a full application of Chinese practices took place. A farreaching item that was taken from China was the written language, but the results have been less than satisfactory. At the time of earliest contact with Chinese culture no system of writing was known in Japan, but the spoken languages were polysyllabic. Chinese is a monosyllabic language easily written by single ideographs or characters. The first writing employed in Japan was Chinese, written by people brought from Korea. These immigrant scholars became the first recorders of Japanese historiography, the first scribes, and bookkeepers. Slowly the Japanese learned this complex system of writing, and it gradually became the written language of Japan. The grafting of a monosyllabic writing onto a polysyllabic speech resulted in a cumbersome system that never has been outgrown.
Though the adapting of only a few features of Chinese culture have been discussed, it must be obvious that the process involved selective adaptation rather than indiscriminate imitation. A close study of Japanese culture in this period suggests that a clear imprint of Chinese culture was spread throughout much of Japan with the result that Japanese culture is modeled upon that of China. But it is equally discernible that slavish copying was never permitted in many lines and that the leaders of Japan were extremely skillful in checking those trends which would have truly converted Japan into a little China in all respects. Chiefly the checks were applied at those points which preserved in the hands of the old line of Japanese leaders the power, wealth, and control of Japan.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)