The Many Cultures of Asia Part I: China, Korea and Japan

I asked our family friend Jennifer Chen, a noted Asian arts and culture scholar, to put together a piece about the cultural differences between the most popular countries in Asia. You can visit these countries hundreds of times and never learn all there is to know about the history, art and people that make them so interesting and inspiring. Here's a short synopsis of Jennifer's review of China, Korea and Japan's cultural heritages and how they are linked with their contemporary circumstances:

China enjoys a history over 5000 years of splendid achievements in technology, art and philosophy. Chinese culture ranks among the oldest and most complex civilizations in the world. Throughout the imperial China, Chinese ideologies, writing system, bureaucracy and artistic creations were the most influential in East Asia. Through the famed Silk Road, Chinese inventions and cultural influences spread all the way across Asia to Europe. Confucianism reigned supreme, and has been the foundation of Chinese ethics. It has, however, struggled to retain its value during the Communist era.

Korea’s traditional culture is closely tied to China in religion, philosophy and writing system. While Chinese customs heavily influence social activities from the royal court to farmer’s households, artistic creations and daily lifestyle demonstrate characteristics distinctively Korean with pristine freshness and originality. The demarcation of North and South Korea as a result of the Korean War has created two social systems with traumatic schism and dramatic contrast. The democratic South Korea has become a superstar in technology, business as well as art and cultural developments.

Japanese culture throughout its long history has demonstrated an astonishing ability of assimilating and synthesizing foreign cultures it encounters. The culmination is a culture that draws from both East Asian roots and Western civilization, but is irrepressibly Japanese in its extraordinary exquisiteness and refinement. Devout preservation of traditions and cutting-edge development in technology form a fascinating feature of the Japanese society. The famed Zen gardens, tea ceremonies and the ubiquitous Japanese automobiles are among the most expressive examples of the unique Japanese cultural process.

Coming up next, Part II: Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand