China Contributions to Japanese History and Culture

China’s contribution to our architecture is enormous. We adapted Buddhism from China during the Naro dynasty. The first forms of new architecture that came from China are temple designs. The Chinese first adopted the designs from India, and improvised it. They replaced the bells of the Indian monastery temples, called stupas, with a series of stories and curved roofs. The new improvised version of the stupas was called pagodas. We adapted that sort of design when we had to build temples for Buddhism when they arrived in our country. This was the design Prince Shotoku used when he founded the Horyuji, magnificent, superior temple in our capital, Nara. The magnificent temple had pagodas worship halls the as Chinese temples. From the Horyuji, we were soon inspired and pagodas were soon built all over our country. Also, those pagodas have inspired our own form of shrines, the Shinto shrines. These permanent shrines mean al lot to us as they reflect our agricultural society and our love of nature. We thank you again for the contributions and inspirations that you have given us.

The contribution China has made to our country is gigantic. Some of their contributions were so vital to our society that we would not have established our country without it. One of those important contributions is government. We have been adapting your forms of government starting from Prince Shotoku. In our country, before we had adapted your system, it was not entirely unified. Our emperor had only loose control. When Prince Shotoku adapted the Chinese system, he set up a series of ranks for government officials. He then issued a guide that stated the emperor was the supreme ruler of the country. Though we cannot entirely copy your systems, for our geography separates our country apart, we have learned from you and our government has been better from then. Thank you China for your contribution to our culture.

The Japanese language was adapted from the Chinese language centuries ago.  The Yamato rulers adapted the Chinese writing language as the writings of the government. The Japanese language was adapted from the Chinese language centuries ago.  The Yamato rulers adapted the Chinese writing language as the writings of the government. The Chinese language had syllables and accents and problems from the language overall itself. Because of those problems, we sought out a way to make your language fit our own environment. By the seventh century, our own scholars were improvising your written language in order to solve these problems. After that, our priests Buddhists created a simplified phonetic system making it easier to write. During the eighth century, the Heian Court women in Kyoto developed another forms of writing for poetry, novels, etc.

Buddhism is a important part of our country that we could not forget. Again, this religion that is widely known to Japan is another influence by China. During the 6th century, the Chinese imperial courts were full of Buddhist monks. They used their power and spread Buddhism as far as they could. First, it went to Korea, then by sea traders it went to Japan. It was actually a Korean king who influenced the Japanese emperor. The Korean king sent a bunch of monks to the imperial court of the Japanese’s with a statue of a Buddha. Then, the Japanese ruler encouraged his subjects to convert as well. Soon, all of our country, from warriors to peasants, converted to Buddhism. Magnificent shrines started to pop up everywhere, and Buddhism became a important religion in Japan, same as Shinto.