How much of Japan's traditional culture comes from China ?

[bossel]

The Chinese government defines 56 ethnic groups[...]However, many of these are in fact the same ethnic group genetically.

M-W: ethnic
2 a : of or relating to large groups of people classed according to common racial, national, tribal, religious, linguistic, or cultural origin or background <ethnic minorities> <ethnic enclaves> b : being a member of an ethnic group c : of, relating to, or characteristic of ethnics

Ethnicity is obviously open to definition; the 56 ethnicities for China that you mentioned are only a political (communist) qualification. They lumped together which doesn't belong together, they drew lines where there are none. Actually, you can distinguish hundreds of ethnicities in China, even the Han are not one homogenous block.

Could you give me an example of dynasty ruling most of China (not just a small kingdom) that lasted enough to have some influence on the culture (the topic of this thread) ?

Why do you need a dynasty to have foreign influence? IIRC, eg. Buddhism grew without being forced upon the Chinese by a foreign dynasty. Except for invasions, when a "foreign" ethnicity achieved rulership, they were already very much sinicised. Which, then again, doesn't mean that on their way to sinicisation they didn't leave their mark on society & culture (albeit regionally).

Anyhow, if this ethnic group always belonged to historical China, I'd consider them Chinese. Many European countries have not been ethnically pure since the Roman Empire.

Neither was China ever ethnically "pure."

So, were they foreign or one ethnic group of China ?

At the time of the establishment of their states they were foreign.

It does not mean that the Turks ruled China.

At least one half-Turk did: Li Yuan Tang

So to be to the point and relevant, what did Chinese culture inherit from the Turks or other non-Chinese ethnic groups ?

From the Turks? Honestly, I don't know, but probably (since Turks lived inside China for several centuries, before they finally assimilated) some folk dances, a few words, dishes, costumes aso. Sogdian traders also brought a lot of Western (European) stuff into China.

Influences of other non-Chinese ethnic groups, apart from what I already wrote about the Turk peoples? Buddhism, Islam, warfare (weaponry & tactics), perhaps (well, probably) influence on literature & arts. Esp. during Tang we have quite a lot of foreign students & scholars in ChangAn, not only being influenced, but also influencing.

I was not saying that these languages bear any similarity (why would you think that ?).

Yes, why would I.

I was just giving very random comparison that if Latin languages in Europe (the big chunk in term of population) were Chinese languages (Mandarin, Wu, Hokkien, Cantonese...), then the relation between Japanese and Chinese is similar to the relation between Latin languages and English, because English comes half from French/Latin and half from Anglo-Saxon/Norse (the same way as Japanese comes half from Chinese and half from the Yamato language, itself possibly a mix of Ainu and Old Korean).

Since Japanese is a different language family from Chinese, while both Germanic & Romance languages belong to one & the same, the comparison still limps, IMO.

As for Korean, I compared it to German because German also imported many words from Latin/French, like Korean language imported words from Chinese (although probably Korean imported more words). Another similarity is that the English/Anglo-Saxon left their home region of Northern Germany for a big island next to it, and the Japanese left their home region of Korea for another big island (in fact 3, and Hokkaido became Japanese about at the same time as Ireland became British). In what way is that limping ?

Ah, you see, this explanation actually makes sense to me.

[newasian]

M-W: ethnic
2 a : of or relating to large groups of people classed according to common racial, national, tribal, religious, linguistic, or cultural origin or background <ethnic minorities> <ethnic enclaves> b : being a member of an ethnic group c : of, relating to, or characteristic of ethnics

Ethnicity is obviously open to definition; the 56 ethnicities for China that you mentioned are only a political (communist) qualification. They lumped together which doesn't belong together, they drew lines where there are none. Actually, you can distinguish hundreds of ethnicities in China, even the Han are not one homogenous block.


Why do you need a dynasty to have foreign influence? IIRC, eg. Buddhism grew without being forced upon the Chinese by a foreign dynasty. Except for invasions, when a "foreign" ethnicity achieved rulership, they were already very much sinicised. Which, then again, doesn't mean that on their way to sinicisation they didn't leave their mark on society & culture (albeit regionally).


Neither was China ever ethnically "pure."


At the time of the establishment of their states they were foreign.


At least one half-Turk did: Li Yuan Tang


From the Turks? Honestly, I don't know, but probably (since Turks lived inside China for several centuries, before they finally assimilated) some folk dances, a few words, dishes, costumes aso. Sogdian traders also brought a lot of Western (European) stuff into China.

Influences of other non-Chinese ethnic groups, apart from what I already wrote about the Turk peoples? Buddhism, Islam, warfare (weaponry & tactics), perhaps (well, probably) influence on literature & arts. Esp. during Tang we have quite a lot of foreign students & scholars in ChangAn, not only being influenced, but also influencing.



Yes, why would I.


Since Japanese is a different language family from Chinese, while both Germanic & Romance languages belong to one & the same, the comparison still limps, IMO.


Ah, you see, this explanation actually makes sense to me.

Yeah, but chinese came from south east asia.

[bossel]

Yeah, but chinese came from south east asia.

Aha, I see very clear now.

[ricecake]

Yeah, but chinese came from south east asia.

CORRECTION ....

Only Chinese ABORIGINAL MINORITIES like Zhuang,Miao,Yao,Dai,plus others CAME FROM South East Asia,not Han Chinese who ARE MAINLY OF NE Asian stock same as Japanese and Koreans migrated through Tibet Kunlun mountains over 6000 years ago.

Han Chinese dialects belong to Sino-Tibetan language family.

Those SOUTHERN Chinese aboriginal minorities' languages are in the same Tai-Kadai group.