Sources of information
Ban Feng: 《Japan汉字的确立及其历史演变》,商务印书馆,2013 edition
Long Xuanli, "On the Spread of Chinese Characters in Korea and Japan", Literary Education, No. 08, 2019
Text丨World peace
Editor丨World Peace
Preface
Former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe delivers an assistant speech on a street in Nara City in the morning to solicit votes for his supporters.
At this moment, a man with a shotgun quietly came behind Abe, and suddenly a gunshot rang out.
Shinzo Abe was shot in the chest and neck with a shotgun held by the man, and he fell to the ground instantly. Then Shinzo Abe was immediately sent to the ambulance for treatment.
During the operation, Shinzo Abe stopped his heartbeat due to his injuries. Soon after, Shinzo Abe was buried, but the topic of Shinzo Abe never stopped.
Shinzo Abe's tombstone reads "The Tomb of the Abe Family".
Why is Chinese on Shinzo Abe's tombstone? What exactly happened in between? Interested friends like it, and let's continue to look down.
Historical Connections:
China and Japan are important neighbors.
As the most powerful nation in the world, China has given birth to the world's most splendid culture, and it is also the only country in the world that can inherit it.
The succession of dynasties in China has given rise to new products. All of these cultures will influence the future development of Japan.
Development of Words:
China's 5,000 culture has continued to develop to this day. The Chinese script has survived the changes of the times and has been preserved to this day.
In other words, the development of Chinese writing has to be followed until the 14th century BC, when the script was still oracle bone script. At that time, people carved important information on animal bones to preserve and disseminate them.
As a milestone in Chinese writing, the oracle bone script has had a significant impact on future development. It has laid the foundation for the development of human civilization. The changing times that followed gave rise to more writing.
After thousands of years of changes and development, Chinese characters have formed a complete system. The oldest Chinese character in China has a history of more than 6,000 years.
The evolution of Chinese characters has gone through several stylistic changes: oracle bone script, golden script, large seal, small seal, official script, regular script and line script. The earliest function of Chinese characters was to maintain communication between people.
After a long period of development, Chinese characters have become one of the longest used scripts in the world.
The influence of Chinese characters in Asia is huge, and the Chinese characters of many surrounding countries have been influenced by Chinese characters.
How the text came to Japan:
The Japanese have been living on a small island country for a long time, and their unique geographical location and living habits have led to the fact that the Japanese culture has not developed its own culture.
As Japan's neighbor, China has been a world power many times over the centuries. Naturally, Japan admires this big country very much.
Japan has admired Chinese culture since ancient times.
Temples were established in Japan a long time ago to propagate China's advanced ideas.
The Japanese are very keen to learn about Chinese Confucianism, and Japanese scholars have taken Chinese thought far more seriously than any other cultural thought.
Beginning in 710 AD, especially during the Tang Dynasty, Japan enshrined Chinese culture as a guideline. Almost the entire culture of the Tang Dynasty was absorbed.
The spread of these cultures has led to the rapid development of Japan. The influence of Chinese culture in Japan has reached an irreplaceable role.
The Japanese will use Huawei as a development strategy. Tang envoys were constantly sent to China, and the number of these envoys to the Tang Dynasty reached 18 times, and they took a large number of cultural and artistic products from the mainland.
A large number of Japanese craftsmen went to China to learn Chinese construction techniques and bring advanced construction techniques and styles back to Japan. I learned almost every aspect of the continent.
Japan's inheritance of Chinese culture continues to this day.
One of the most important influences on Japan was the introduction of Chinese characters to Japan. The influence of kanji on Japan is far beyond imagination.
Since China's status was among the best in the world in ancient times, some of China's neighbors revered China very much and wanted to become a great power like China.
Since he had no successful experience, he directly copied and learned from China.
Before the introduction of kanji to Japan, most Japanese people used voice to communicate, and it was impossible to record them effectively. This has a huge impact on people's lives.
Chinese characters are constantly spreading outward. The first is North Korea, which is deeply influenced by the Chinese cultural circle due to its unique geographical location and its border with the mainland.
Soon after, North Korea began to use Chinese characters extensively. After years of development, it has had a profound impact on North Korea. Ordinary people have also experienced the advantages brought by Chinese culture.
With the increasing importance of Chinese characters in North Korea. As a result, the influence continued to grow, and then spread to Japan.
But this statement has not been strictly concluded until now. However, it is certain that Chinese characters were introduced to Japan during the Sui and Tang dynasties.
The development of kanji in Japan itself:
When Chinese characters first arrived in Japan, the Japanese were not used to it. Therefore, it is constantly improved according to the habits of the local people, so that it is more in line with the usage habits of the Japanese people.
The Japanese set up a Chinese character association to study this. Japanese scholars adapted its evolution to Chinese characters.
In addition to this, Japan has also learned from the advanced ideas of the mainland. Thus Confucianism was introduced to Japan. In accordance with the principles of Confucianism, Japan implements this for its own country.
The Japanese people are also constantly learning and understanding kanji, which makes it more popular, which is beneficial to the full spread of Chinese characters in Japan. The cultural circles of China and Japan are almost in one dimension.
The Four Books and Five Classics of the Mainland, Japan attaches great importance to them, and continues to incorporate them. All of them are used in the future governance of the country.
The Influence of Chinese Culture on Asia:
In addition to Japan, many other countries in Southeast Asia have been influenced by Chinese characters. China's strong national strength made the Zhou state actively friendly with the mainland.
During the period of exchanges with the mainland, they will continue to learn the advanced ideas and culture of the mainland. In this way, Chinese characters have become a medium of communication between China and Southeast Asian countries.
After years of use, the script spread to many Southeast Asian countries such as Vietnam, Japan, North Korea, and South Korea, and had a profound impact on their future development.
Shinzo Abe's attitude towards Chinese culture:
Because of the ubiquity of China's influence on Japan, there has always been a connection between the two countries.
During his reign, Shinzo Abe made several overtures to China. And attaches great importance to Chinese culture. It has actively promoted cultural exchanges between China and Japan.
There is a great deal of interest in the study of Chinese classical Chinese in Japan. Promote the development of Chinese culture. As a high-level Japanese intellectual, Shinzo Abe's education since childhood naturally belongs to elite education in Japan.
After all, when Shinzo Abe was in school, being able to learn kanji was naturally a culture that only a few high-level members of society could access.
Shinzo Abe is deeply influenced by Chinese culture, and judging from the actions he made during his reign, Shinzo Abe is also very supportive and identifies with Chinese culture.
In fact, a deeper study of what Shinzo Abe has done, you will find that Shinzo Abe was still relatively friendly to China when he first became the prime minister of Japan during his reign.
But soon after, with the pressure of international and domestic public opinion, Shinzo Abe had to take a tough attitude towards China. After some time, Mr. Abe changed his old ways and showed goodwill toward China.
Shinzo Abe has been strengthening cooperation with China economically, but he has kept quiet about the past history of China and Japan. This shows that Shinzo Abe's attitude towards China is generally quite vacillating.
Although there are many differences between Chinese and Japanese cultures, the overall cultural connotation of Japan is more learned from China.
With the development of 5,000 years, China's cultural values have penetrated into various fields in Japan. Overall, there is no doubt about China's cultural development and influence on Japan.
Now back to the main topic of this article, it is quite normal for Shinzo Abe to write Chinese characters on his tombstone.
Shinzo Abe not only learned about Chinese culture, but also identified with it.
This practice expresses Abe's respect and importance for Chinese culture.
In today's complex times, we should love our own culture, learn from and carry it forward.