Over ten thousand years ago, when immigrants from Micronesia and the Asian continent first settled the chain of islands off the east coast of Asia, now known as Japan, they were left to develop with little interference for thousands of years, developing, for example, a spoken language unlike any other that "has no close relatives," although it has been linked to Polynesian, Turkish, and Mongolian languages (Wolken sage.tamu.edu; Early Japan www.japan-guide.com). Around 300 BCE, however, the rice plant was introduced from the Asian continent, which totally revolutionized Japanese agriculture (National Museum of Japanese History www.rekihaku.ac.jp). Since that time Japan has gone through intense periods of seeking knowledge from other cultures to assimilate into their own (Morris 6-7). This paper will examine one of these phases, when Japan developed from a relatively primitive society to a high degree of cultural sophistication by assimilating Chinese civilization, including the Chinese government institution, the concept of emperorship, the ideology of philosophy and religion, the system of landholding and taxation, literature, the writing system, and architectural techniques.
First contact between China and Japan happened as early as 57 CE, during the peak of the Han dynasty in China, when King Na of Wa (Japan) first sent tribute to the Han dynasty and received a gold seal in return (National Museum . . .www.rekihaku.ac.jp; Fairbank and Goldman 60). Japanese culture had progressed some at this time, with the establishment of a first Emperor in 660 BCE, who was to have descended from the Sun Goddess Amaterasu. This emperor, however, far from being a supreme ruler, was instead the head chief of many clans and did not possess the same unilateral power as the Chinese emperor (Wolken sage.tamu.edu). Chinese histories differ slightly and estimate first contact to have happened around 200 CE, which was at the end of the Han period i...