I am starting to learn Chinese and as I start this journey, I realized I want a deeper literacy about how the cultures of East Asia are related and how they developed into the current nation states. I feel like as a Westerner I have this general background on the origins of European cultures (the migrations of Indo-Europeans/Celts/Germanic people/Latin people/Slavs; the existence of the Greek/Roman/Byzantine/Holy Roman empires, and how all that affected today’s borders and national identities). I want the same foundation about East Asia.
I have questions like: why is China so big and ethnically diverse, while Korea has stayed distinct? Why do Chinese and Japanese share one writing system but not both? What is the relationship between the different countries’ spiritual belief systems (including Vietnam, which seems to share a lot of beliefs with China like the lunar zodiac and New Year)? Who has invaded whom, and when? How did tea come into the picture? Hands-free martial arts? Meticulous minimalist gardens? And out of all of these cultural elements, which ones do the different countries understand as having a shared origin (like Christians all tracing things back to the Holy Land) vs. claim as autochthonous (like Colombia and Venezuela both insisting that they invented the arepa)?
Thanks in advance!
by the-whole-benchilada