iLook China

This post at History World.org explains The Spread of Chinese Civilization to Japan.

“Although its full impact on global history has not been felt until the last century or so, the transmission of key elements in Chinese culture to the offshore islands that came to make up Japan clearly provides one of the most important examples of the spread of civilization from a central core area to neighboring or overseas peoples. In the 1st centuries A.D., the peoples of Japan imported a wide range of ideas, techniques of production, institutional models, and material objects from the Chinese mainland. After adapting these imports to make them compatible with the quite sophisticated culture they had previously developed, the Japanese used what they had borrowed from China to build a civilization of their own.”

Japan, the Philippines, Vietnam, Singapore, Korea, India, Malaysia, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Afghanistan, and Pakistan are also collective cultures like China is. You can see the complete list here: Collectivist and individualist cultures

For instance, Japan’s written language, ancient architecture and religions originated in and/or spread from China.

For Thailand, the CIA Fact book lists 14% of Thai people are of Chinese origin. They don’t have Chinese surnames anymore because in the 1920s, the Thai king issued a royal decree to erase their last names. Thailand was going through sort of an ethnic cleansing at the time and I recall reading that they also made it illegal for Chinese to own businesses, but that didn’t last long because the Chinese owned so many businesses and banks that business came to a stop when they were forced to close their doors. In addition, through the centuries, significant intermixing has taken place such that there are few pure ethnic Chinese anymore, and those of partially mixed Chinese ancestry account for as much as a third to a half of the Thai population.

In Burma, known today as Myanmar, it is estimated that Burmese Chinese form about 3% of the population.

Chinese Filipinos are one of the largest overseas Chinese communities in Southeast Asia. Sangleys—Filipinos with at least some Chinese ancestry—comprise 27-35% of the Philippine population totaling up to 30 million people. There are approximately 2 million Filipinos with pure Chinese ancestry, or around 2.5% of the population.

Singapore is a multiracial and multicultural country with a majority population of Chinese (75.9% of the resident population).

Vietnam was ruled by China for more than a 1,000 years (111 BC – 1427 AD) before the Vietnamese finally succeeded in driving them out after a 1,000 years of rebellion to regain their homeland, and that had an impact on Vietnamese culture.

In fact, before the Chinese actually colonized Vietnam by force, groups from southern China began to move into the Tonkin Delta in order to start new lives after being forced to leave their homelands. Thus, around the 3rd century BC, changes in China began to heavily influence the Đông Sơn culture which was thriving in Vietnam. Ten centuries of Chinese colonization left a substantial demographic footprint, with settlement by large numbers of ethnic Chinese

In conclusion, what happens when civilizations influenced by individualism attempt to influence and/or control collectivist cultures?

Return to or Start with Part 1

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of My Splendid Concubine [3rd edition]. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the lusty love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.

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China’s Holistic Historical Timeline

In the West, and the United States in particular, few know that China was the wealthiest—and after the Roman Empire fell—the most powerful and technologically advanced civilization in the world for about 1,000 years until the 15th and 16th centuries and the rise of the Western colonial empires: the British, French, German, Italian, Netherlands, Portugal, Belgium, Spain, Russia, and, yes, the United States.

In fact, Global Research.ca reports “The study of world power has been blighted by Eurocentric historians who have distorted and ignored the dominant role China played in the world economy between 1100 and 1800. … As early as 1078, China was the world’s major producer of steel (125,000 tons); whereas Britain in 1788 produced 76,000 tons.

“China was the world’s leader in technical innovations in textile manufacturing, seven centuries before Britain’s 18th century ‘textile revolution’.

“China was the leading trading nation, with long distance trade reaching most of Southern Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Europe.  China’s ‘agricultural revolution’ and productivity surpassed the West down to the 18th century.

“Its innovations in the production of paper, book printing, firearms and tools led to a manufacturing superpower whose goods were transported throughout the world by the most advanced navigational system.

“China possessed the world’s largest commercial ships.  In 1588 the largest English ships displaced 400 tons, China’s 3,000 tons.  Even as late as the end of the 18th century China’s merchants employed 130,000 private transport ships, several times that of Britain. China retained this pre-eminent position in the world economy up until the early 19th century.

“British and Europeans manufacturers followed China’s lead, assimilating and borrowing its more advanced technology and were eager to penetrate China’s advanced and lucrative market.

“Banking, a stable paper money economy, manufacturing and high yields in agriculture resulted in China’s per capita income matching that of Great Britain as late as 1750.

“China’s dominant global position was challenged by the rise of British imperialism, which had adopted the advanced technological, navigational and market innovations of China and other Asian countries in order to bypass earlier stages in becoming a world power.”

It is safe to say that the concept of ‘face’ is similar throughout most of Asia. China was a regional super power for more than 1,500 years starting before the Han Dynasty in 206 BC to the Qing Dynasty’s collapse in 1911 AD. In addition, Chinese merchants sailed to and traded with most if not all of the nations in Asia during that period and Chinese merchants and business people migrated to many of those areas spreading the influence of a collective culture—Europe and North America, for instance, are individualist cultures.

Continued in Part 2 on January 13, 2016.

____________________________

Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of My Splendid Concubine [3rd edition]. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the lusty love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.

Where to Buy

Subscribe to “iLook China”!
Sign up for an E-mail Subscription at the top of this page, or click on the “Following” tab in the WordPress toolbar at the top of the screen.

About iLook China

China’s Holistic Historical Timeline