What were the main Chinese cultures that Japan studied in ancient times when it took China as its teacher?

The idea that Japan had long looked to China as its teacher before the Meiji Restoration of 1868 is a generally accepted view in both China and Japan.

The Japanese court's extensive study of Chinese culture began during the Peking Reformation. At the end of the sixth century A.D., the Japanese court introduced the reforms of the Peking dynasty. Under the auspices of Prince Sōtoku, who revered Chinese Buddhist thought, it studied the Chinese state system and ideology and culture. Japan drew on Chinese Buddhism and other schools of thought to formulate the seventeen articles of the Constitution. Prince Shengde personally annotated a number of Buddhist classics, and built a wide range of Buddhist temples in the country to promote Buddhist ideas.

Prince Shengde

Before the emergence of the Japanese national science and orchidology in Japan during the Edo period, the so-called learning in Japan mainly came from the Chinese Confucianism and Buddhism, especially Confucianism.

The later Japanese traditional culture was based on the Chinese cultures of Confucianism and Buddhism and developed in combination with local ideas. Some Japanese scholars have argued that if Chinese culture were abandoned, Japan would have no traditional culture.

Since Chinese culture had absolute dominance in the East before the early Qing Dynasty, ancient Japan held Chinese culture in high esteem. The direction of learning in Japan before the Meiji Restoration was called "Wabi-sabi" (和魂漢才). That is to say, Japanese people should have the spirit of Japan, but should also have Chinese learning in their hearts.

Japan in China during the Tang Dynasty, the implementation of large-scale all-round "Huawei teacher" strategy, has sent 18 times to the Tang Dynasty mission, each mission up to more than 800 people. They selected the domestic talent to stay in China to learn our political system, medicine, architecture, art and other aspects. Some of them studied for as long as 20 to 30 years, and when they returned to Japan, they were often highly utilized by the government to promote Chinese culture. Because of the great benefit of learning from China, Japan at that time referred to China as the "father country" and itself as the "child country".

Japanese Tang Dynasty Ship

When the Mongols ruled China and established the Yuan Dynasty, Japan believed that China had been ruled by the barbaric Mongols and had lost its orthodox Chinese culture. And the orthodox Chinese culture has been inherited by Japan, so it has long claimed to have the orthodox Chinese culture. It can be seen that Japan at that time held Chinese culture in high esteem.

One, the Japanese script evolved on the basis of Chinese characters

Since the Chinese culture was dominant in East Asia in ancient times, the Chinese characters had long been the only common script in East Asia for Japan, the Korean Peninsula, the Ryukyus, Vietnam and other countries, and were the written standardized script of these countries until the 20th century.

Before the introduction of Chinese characters into Japan, Japanese people used only speech to communicate with each other and did not have writing. After the introduction of Chinese characters, Japanese people continued to speak in their native language and began to write in Chinese characters.

Later, many Japanese felt uncomfortable with the writing of foreign kanji, so they began to simplify the writing of kanji, which led to the formation of kana. For example, the kanji for "與" was shortened to "よ, ヨ", and the kanji for "乃" was shortened to "の", and so on.

Japanese kana

In modern Japanese, more than 2,100 kanji are commonly used, and kanji are still predominant in official Japanese documents.

In 1964, the National Research Institute of Japan (NRI) carried out a survey and study of 90 types of magazine terminology, and came to the conclusion that Chinese accounted for 47.5% of the total, Wabi sabi 36.7%, and Western languages nearly 10%

II. Confucianism influenced many aspects of Japanese society

According to Japan's Record of Ancient Matters, in 248 A.D., Dr. Wang Ren, a Chinese doctor of the Five Classics, came to Japan from Korea and brought Chinese Confucian texts such as The Analects of Confucius, The Book of Filial Piety, and The Thousand Character Texts to Japan. This was the first time that Chinese Confucian books reached Japan.

Japan, in the process of learning from China's Sui and Tang dynasties, also gradually began to use Confucian Confucian Confucian Confucianism, such as "loyalty, benevolence, righteousness, etiquette" and other ideas to govern the country. In the Edo period, Japan had already adopted the Confucian idea of "cultivating one's moral character, aligning one's family, ruling the country, and leveling the world.

Many Confucian principles of conduct and morality, such as loyalty, filial piety, sincerity and righteousness, are still held in high esteem in modern Japan. The Confucian texts "Shangshu", "Analects of Confucius" and "I Ching" are well known in Japan.

Japan's ancient and modern year names, with the exception of the current "Rinwa", are all taken from ancient Chinese texts. For example, the first ancient Japanese year name "Dahua" was taken from the Chinese Confucian text "Shangshu," which means "great change. Meiji, the year name of Japan's Meiji Restoration period, also comes from the Confucian book "I Ching," which means "cultivation of political affairs.

Shangshu

Third, Shintoism, the major religion that arose in Japan itself, absorbed much of Chinese Buddhism and Confucianism, and also contained the Chinese doctrine of yin and yang and the five elements.

The very name Shintoism comes from the Chinese I Ching. Japanese Shintoism has absorbed a lot of Confucianism. For example, "loyalty to the king" and "the commonwealth society".

Four, the theory of Chinese medicine in China on the development of Japanese medicine has had a great impact

The fifth century A.D., North Korean emissaries to Chinese medicine technology for the Japanese emperor received the effect of treatment, so that Japan began to see the value of the theory of Chinese medicine. The theory of Chinese medicine was introduced to Japan from the Korean Peninsula and was the origin of the development of Japanese medicine. In the Sui, Tang, and Song dynasties, a steady stream of Chinese medical texts were transmitted from China to Japan, and became the mainstream theory of Japanese medicine. Famous Chinese medical texts that came to Japan include the Yellow Emperor's Classic of Internal Medicine, the Treatise on Typhoid and Miscellaneous Diseases, and the Compendium of Materia Medica, to name a few.

Later, Japan gradually localized the theories of Chinese medicine, and finally in the middle of the Edo period, the real Japanese traditional medicine, both Oriental medicine, also known as Chinese medicine, was formed and developed independently in Japan.

After the Meiji Restoration in Japan, Western medicine gradually overpowered the dominance of Chinese medicine in Japan. However, due to the fact that Chinese herbal medicine has fewer toxic side effects than Western medicine, the Japanese government has been supporting the development of Chinese medicine in recent decades, making it a "national treasure" industry. In the international arena, the development of Chinese medicine in Japan has caught up with the momentum of Chinese medicine. By 2010, the proportion of Japanese people taking Chinese medicine (TCM) had increased from 19% 40 years ago to 72%. There is a great momentum of revival of Chinese medicine in Japan.

Japanese Samurai

Fifth, the spirit of Japanese Bushido is y influenced by Chinese Confucian and Buddhist thought

Bushido is the moral code of the samurai class in Japan's feudal society, and it is the core of Japan's spiritual culture, which has a deep influence on Japan's national character. Bushido originated in Japan during the Kamakura Shogunate period, and was later shaped by the absorption of Confucian and Buddhist ideas during the Edo period.

New Watarido Inazo, a famous modern Japanese scholar, believes that Confucius' thought is the most important ideological source of Bushido, and that the excellent qualities of "righteousness, courage, benevolence, propriety and sincerity" in the Analects of Confucius are the essence of the ideology of Bushido.

Bushido also absorbed the Confucian idea of loyalty and martyrdom. However, Japan's approach to the idea of loyalty and martyrdom was very aggressive compared to that of China. When a samurai failed to fulfill some of the tasks given by his master, he was required to commit suicide by cutting open his stomach to apologize.

Sixth, a large number of Japanese customs learned from China

Japan's most famous three ways of life, "Flower Ceremony, Tea Ceremony, and Book Ceremony," are all from China, and combined with Japan's local characteristics to develop.

The Japanese kimono is also known as the Wu costume in Japan because it is based on the Wu costume of the Three Kingdoms period in China.

Japanese sumo wrestling, judo, chopsticks, tatami mats, wooden clogs, and sliding doors and windows were all learned from ancient China.

Traditional Japanese Style Streets

The architecture of houses on many streets in modern Japanese cities is still similar to the style in China during the Tang Dynasty. Walking down a modern Japanese road, you can see signs with Chinese characters written on them everywhere.

Japan is one of the countries in the Chinese cultural circle that has been most influenced by Chinese culture, as it shares a border with China. The introduction of Chinese culture greatly accelerated the process of Japan's historical development.