The different between Japan and China

China and Japan are both found in Eastern Asia and speak languages that though different, are closely related. China is located between Vietnam and North Korea and borders the South China Sea, the Yellow Sea, Korea Bay, and the East China Sea. Japan, on the other hand, is located east of the Korean Peninsula, between the Sea of Japan and the North Pacific Ocean. They both have a coastline that runs into many thousand kilometers. One would expect that being that the countries are in the same region and close to each other; they should essentially be similar to each other. However, as this essay shows, there are many differences between Japan and China in terms of their food, culture, natural resources, and population distribution. The first major difference between China and Japan comes in their food. “While the Chinese food is spicy and involves a lot of frying and cooking, the Japanese food is far less spicy and has very subtle flavors compared to other local foods in Asia” (Expertscolumn. com, 2017). China has diverse food owing to its large geographic extent. Food diversity in China has also been influenced by cuisines from foreign countries, especially Mongolia and the Middle East. Additionally, a lot of oil is used in food preparation in the country, with a heavy use of spices and flavors. Majorly, Chinese food consists of beef, pork, chicken, and duck. On the other hand, Japan has an isolated food culture essentially because it is an island. They prefer seafood on a large scale. There is minimal use of oil in preparing food and therefore the food is considered healthier. Most of the food is consumed raw in Japan. As Historyplex. com (2017) notes, “While slurping when having your meals can draw frowns in China, it is considered as a compliment in Japan”. China and Japan also significantly differ in their culture. There is a long history attached to Chinese culture and that the vastness of the country’s territory makes the culture have a plethora of varieties. The culture has a lot of heterogeneity owing to the fact that the country has been exposed to several various nationalities in addition to having a long history. Some of the notable nationalities that have contributed to this heterogeneity are Europeans and Indians. In contrast, Japan has an isolated culture because, according to its recorded history, the country has not experienced significant external influence. Coupled with its considerably small size, this lack of external influence by Japan has ensured that its culture is more homogenous. Societal harmony is seriously emphasized upon in Japanese culture. The society thus expects that every person will always show very high levels of self-discipline. Even when conversing with each other, a very polite approach is followed by Japanese people. This is why it would be difficult to find people yelling at or quarreling with each other publicly in Japan. “In comparison, China poses the picture of a typical developing country, with the level of politeness being less common” (Expertscolumn. com, 2017). However, the Japanese transform it in their way and to a certain degree, the Confucian concept is applied to relationships carrying a different meaning from China. At its most basic of culture, Chinese morality is founded on the family structure, with the most important social ties being that of parent and child and its blood-related family clans. The Japanese moral system is founded on a set of kinship relationships that go beyond blood ties or extend to members who have no blood relationship, with the primary tie being that between leader and follower. Therefore, Japanese political culture is more group-oriented, more tribal, or more radical. Another example is the paired concept of both are duties we owe to our superiors. Loyalty is our duty to our ruler, and filial piety is our duty to our parents Chinese cultural pride was just too deeply ingrained, so it became an impediment, blinding many Chinese and preventing them from recognizing the need to learn from the barbarians and for fundamental change. On the other hand, Japanese efforts to adopt foreign technology to meet their military and industrial needs were largely successful. The Meiji regime, however, saw that military technology and industrialization could not be separated from institutional structures that had produced and accompanied such development in the West, and showed that could give Japan the modernity it needed to survive. Overall, the Meiji Restoration was a tremendous success for the Japanese and allowed them to join the ranks of Westen new imperial powers. Both nations pursued the goal of a “rich nation and strong army” as the way to modernization through the Self-Strengthening Movement in China and the Meiji Restoration in Japan (Wikipedia. com) Another source of difference between China and Japan is the countries’ respective natural resources. China has many various natural resources probably because of its vastness. These include arable land, uranium, rare earth elements, zinc, lead, aluminum, magnetite, vanadium, molybdenum, manganese, antimony, tungsten, tin, mercury, natural gas, petroleum, iron ore, and coal. It is also worth noting that the country has the largest hydropower potential in the world. Inversely, the mineral resources in Japan are negligible. Apart from having fish and fishing grounds, the country has virtually no resources of natural energy. This fact has made Japan the largest liquefied natural gas and coal importer in the world. It also ranks second in oil importation worldwide (Indexmundi. com, 2017). Further, China and Japan differ in their population distribution. In China, the eastern half of the country has the overwhelming majority of the population. The west, in contrast to the east, has a sparse population. This is major because the west is characterized by desert areas and mountainous landscape. It should also be of interest to note that China is the most populated country in the world. In spite of this, the country has a less overall population density as compared to many countries in Europe and Asia. In the country, “high population density is found along the Yangtze and Yellow River valleys, the Xi Jiang River delta, the Sichuan Basin (around Chengdu), in and around Beijing, and the industrial area around Shenyang” (Indexmundi. com, 2017). On the other hand, Japan has a third of its population living around and in Tokyo, the capital city. A significant percentage of the population lives in Kanto plain around Tokyo. On the same note, the coast of the country bears the larger population density of the country (Indexmundi. com, 2017). The obvious difference between China and Japan is a social character. In Japan, they practice capitalism to the hilt. However, China is building socialism. In the early years after the founding of the People’s Republic of China, China could not find a way to develop the market economy, and experience indicates that China only can develop under socialism. In contrast, thirty years ago, the war shattered the economy of Japan, but today the Japanese Gross National Product exceeds the combined total of Britain and France. According to the data, we know the recovery of the Japanese economy after the war surprised many people. In addition, the language of China and Japan is different. The language of Japan is Japanese, while the language in China is Chinese. However, the most characters are from Chinese. Both Japanese and Chinese languages are interesting to learn, and the history, though undefined in some ways, are none the less rich for them. These are languages of beauty and of many complexities. Another area of difference between Japan and China is the religions. Shinto and Buddhism are Japan’s two major religions. Christianity is very much a minority religion in Japan with Christians making up less than one percent of the population. The religions of Japan is both theologically and institutional, which quite different from those of the western world. China is a country with a great diversity of religious beliefs. The main religions are Buddhism, Taoism, Islam, Catholicism, and Protestantism. Citizens of China may freely to choose and express their religious beliefs and make clear their religious affiliations. But some of Chinese are lack of belief or faith because they are believed in Science. Moreover, the clothing of style between China and Japan is also different. Japanese clothing is exotic in style and nature. The traditional Japanese clothing is the kimono which has been an international favorite since long ago. However, in the early years after the founding of the People’s Republic of China, China was a poor country, so most people always wore a cotton dress and Chinese black cotton shoes. But as the day pass by, Chinese fashion has drastically changed over time. In conclusion, China and Japan are countries found in Asia with the former having a vast geographical area and the latter being comparatively far smaller. The countries share the feature of having a coastline, and closeness of the languages they speak. They, however, have respective distinctive features that define them as individual countries. These include their respective foods, cultures, natural resources, and population distribution. For instance, while the food in China is diverse, the one in Japan is isolated. The same applies to their respective cultures. In addition, China has numerous natural resources as compared to Japan that hardly has any and resorts to importing.