77.9% of Japanese think country must improve relations with China, Japanese govt survey says

Mainichi (Japan) / AP ^ | March 29, 2006

[CarrotAndStick]

In India, local vernacular and English language television, radio and print-media thrive with great success. As a result, the Indian private TV channels number in the hundreds.


In China, do they allow private newsprint and TV?

http://www.indiantelevision.com/

[Joe Boucher]

Hey japan, the chi-coms are oging to eat you up and spit you out and I hope the U.S. does nothing about it.

[Republican Party Reptile]

That was a trick question of a sort, figure someone would bring up the written form of Classical Chinese - it was a standard, yes, official, yes, but not common.

Until the introduction of common spoken Mandarin, including the champion of writing in "Bai Hua" (or plain spoken) based on common Mandarin for writing in Chinese, other than the official, classical / semi-claisscal written language used by the educated class, the *common* Chinese language were all separate regional vernaculars.

Some people may call these dialects, but that's really more of a socio-political distinction than any real linguistic distinction (there is in fact no formal linguistic definition of what is a "dialect" vs what is a "language"). And many of the more regionally dominant and linguistically independent vernaculars have their own written lexicon and convention.

Sure, all Chinese writing use a common script, but to cite as example - anyone who has ever read something written in native Cantonese or Taiwanese vernacular can see that the writings are, while obviously related, also distinctly different from either classical Chinese or modern standard Mandarin.

[buglemanster]

Written vernacular languages didn't really see the light of day in Europe either until the last millennium. Before the 1300s, there weren't many Chinese who were literate, those that were (the elite), were literate in Classical Chinese and not in the vernaculars. Hence Classical Chinese was common to the literate population. So it's not really a trick question on your part, more like a pointless one. Mandarin Baihua (vernacular) writing began around the Ming dynasty 1300-1600s (you have Ming dynasty books like "Water Margin" and "Dream of the Red Chamber" that were written in proto-Mandarin). Cantonese, Taiwanese and Shanghainese Baihua only started during the end of the Qing dynasty in late 19th century. And the common written language was Classical Chinese (wenyanwen) until the end of the Qing Dynasty in 1912. The word "common" doesn't mean "commoner's language" ("putong"), but rather a standardized language use by the elite everywhere ("tongyong"). Classical written Chinese was tongyong, not putong.

[Republican Party Reptile]

Common is Common by definition. It's not the same as "standard". The existence and utilization of a standard, be it classical Chinese, Latin, or Greek, by only the elite class by definition is not "common' i.e. wide-spread and used / understood by the majority.

Otherwise might as well say that the modern world community has a common language in Esperento.

[buglemanster]

Classical Chinese WAS THE COMMON LITERARY LANGUAGE in China. I am using the dictionary definition of common. Do you refute this statement? If so, provide another literary language that was used by the Han before the Ming dynasty. If not, what are you arguing about? You are arguing for the sake of arguing.

[buglemanster]

A standard is by definition COMMON, when it has no other competition. Vernacular written forms of Chinese did not exist until the 1500s.

[Republican Party Reptile]

argumentative ... and once you go down the path you sometime lose sight of the original point - which was not about the dictionary defintion of "common" or "standard", but a very simple, straight forward point that - until the wide introduction of Mandarin in spoken and written forms, your average everyday Chinese pokey-joe's only knowledge of language is his own regional vernacular. A random selection of a rice farmer outside Guangzhou and a shoe cobbler outside Lanzhou really couldn't communicate with each other effectively.

[pganini]

That's plainly wrong, unless you're talking about 200 BC when Qin declared there is just one written language, which he did.

[indcons]

The ChiCom troll is busy today. What's up, gogoman/ckwilliams?

As FReeper Monkeywrench pointed out, the greatest threat to peace in Asia is the barbaric ChiCom dictatorship and its minions in the PLA. The String of Pearls strategy is designed to colonize countries in Asia/Africa that are not friendly to China.

[pganini]

maybe in 200 bc they couldn't, but today they can. There is a common spoken language today.

the original assertion was that The Japanese WRITTEN language is predominantly based on Chinese characters and that written language has been the same since 200 BC.

BTW, Japanese culture, traditional dress, are all based on the Tang Dynasty - the Kimono is essentially the dress that women wore in the Tang Dynasty in China.

[Republican Party Reptile]

I guess you missed the whole string of follow-ups.

Again, I said " until the introduction of Mandarin .."

The introduction of a mass literacy in a common spoken and written form is a very recent affair in China (as is with mass literacy in just about every where). Until the push for mass literacy based on Mandarin, there was no common language form for the commoners.

[Republican Party Reptile]

Since you are both in Austin, you two should get together for teas and crumpets. Who knows, you might even be neighbors and co-workers. The Austin tech community is still very self-referential.

Wouldn't that be fun times for all to find out you are really in neighboring cubicles.

[NZerFromHK]

Also Chinese people don't eat crumpets with their tea. They prefer serving tea plain (for most provinces) or with dim sum (if you are Cantonese). ;-) Only Hong Kong under the British imperialistic influence developed a taste of British-style tea where you eat crumpets along with tea! /Chinese-uber-nationalists rants off

[NZerFromHK]

Time to dust out an old article and also study another side of Japan that often got ignored by East Asian sphere proponents:

---

http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=18012002-055550-1094r

Anglosphere: The Sand and the Pearl

By JAMES C. BENNETT
19 January 2002

The Anglosphere assumption is based partly on the assumption that as physical barriers become less relevant on the information economy, the other economic equivalents of mountain and water barriers -- linguistic and cultural differences -- will tend to take their place. This will result in the emergence of "network civilizations." These are groups of countries with substantial linguistic and cultural commonalties, which, whether geographically adjacent or not, will form significant areas of mutual cooperation. The Anglosphere -- the set of English-speaking, Common Law countries -- are one such, of course, but there will likely be many others.

However, there will also continue to be strong, unique, distinctive cultures that are not readily assignable to any wider civilization. Japan is perhaps the world's most visible and successful example. It is worth examining the Japanese case, not only for its own sake, but also to think about the fate of states which like Japan are not obviously part of a wider network civilization.

The most important fact about Japan may not be what it is, but rather what it is not. It is not part of an East Asian, "Confucian" civilization as many superficial observers tend to assume. Samuel Huntington and others define it as a unique civilization; this seems reasonable in light of the evidence.

In the same way that the Anglosphere is recognizably rooted in Western Christian civilization, but has become something distinct, so has Japan become something rooted in East Asian Confucian civilization, but has similarly become something distinct. British historian J.C.A. Pocock called England "European, but European with a difference." Just so, Japan could be called "Asian, but Asian with a difference."

Just as a pan-European political institution is thus unsuitable as a primary affiliation for Britain, so would a pan-Asian political institution be unworkable for Japan. History certainly shows how Japan's own version of a pan-Asian political institution, the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, did not gain acceptance with many non-Japanese.

The other historical fact of interest about Japan is its deep, problematic, but mutually stimulating century-and-a-half relationship with the Anglosphere. From Commodore Perry and his Black Ships, through Japan's early alliance with Britain and the influence of the Royal Navy on the Imperial Navy, MacArthur as Occupation authority, to Edwards Deming and his quality-control revolution, and now the impact of the Internet, the Anglosphere and its people and institutions have often been the irritant that causes the Japanese oyster to produce its pearls.

The influence has not been one-sided, however. Japan's esthetic, its architecture, its religions, its philosophies, its manufactures, and its emigrants have all profoundly influenced the Anglosphere, and particularly America, to a greater degree than other European cultures. The distance between Tokyo and Honolulu is hardly more than the distance from London to New York; San Francisco and Los Angeles have always looked west over their horizons, as Tokyo has looked east to America since the Black Ships.

This suggests that in the continuing scientific-technological revolutions, Japan may find its task to be balancing its historical ties with the Asian continent with its newer but also profound ties with the Anglosphere. Such a balance may be the key to maintaining Japanese independence, not so much from formal threats of conquest, but rather from excessive submission to one or another culture.

Japan has never successfully maintained its independence through closure against the world. It has tried various methods of doing so at different times in its history, and each time that route has led to stagnation. Rather, Japan has been most successful when it has opened itself to the outside world, while adapting what it absorbs into a uniquely Japanese form.

Some theorize that Japan's primary task must be to reconcile itself to the idea of China as a growing power, one that will become more modern and more strong every decade. But the real question is whether China can make the transition to a genuine strong civil society fast enough to be an actor in the drama of the coming phases of the scientific-technological revolution.

Japan cannot look to an Asian identity or an Asian alliance as its primary route to success in political or international affairs. The United States and its partners will be the principal security and economic partners for Japan in the next phase of the scientific-technological revolution as it has been for the postwar period.

In order to prepare for the future, Japan must think hard about the social and constitutional changes it must undergo. Japan is in the situation of needing to enact social and political changes that both enable it to deal more effectively with its current economic situation, and also prepare it to benefit from its natural advantages in a the coming technological and economic environment. Fortunately, these are effectively the same.

A more entrepreneurial economy, easier mobilization of capital through venture capital and open financial exchanges, and direct integration of Japan's economy with the other high-trust, strong civil societies via the Internet economy must replace corporate domination, cozy but inflexible bank-corporate funding arrangements, and de facto insulation of the Japanese economy.

Japan responded to the opening of the postwar constitution with the founding of great companies like Honda and Sony. Entrepreneurism is latent in any high-trust civil society and will flourish again once political impediments have been removed, as the case of England after Thatcher's reforms demonstrates.

In that event Japan could well emerge as one of the leaders of the coming world.

[Republican Party Reptile]

A Shiner beer for them two then, I'd say BBQ briskets too but maybe Indcons keeps veggie, so only beer and chips ... and caged death match in a steel cage suspended from the middle of the 360 Bridge.

I just have visions of these two bumping into and snarling at each other in the many, many Indian and Chinese buffet places that seem to be popular with the Austin techie crowd for lunch. Sarovar vs the Buffet Palace ...