Culture of Asia

The culture of Asia is human civilization in Asia. It features different kinds of cultural heritage of many nationalities, societies, and ethnic groups in the region, traditionally called a continent from a Western-centric perspective, of Asia. The region or "continent" is more commonly divided into more natural geographic and cultural subregions, including Central Asia, East Asia, North Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia and West Asia. Geographically, Asia is not a distinct continent; culturally, there has been little unity or common history for many of the cultures and peoples of Asia. Asian art, music, and cuisine, as well as literature, are important parts of Asian culture. Eastern philosophy and religion also plays a major role, with Hinduism, Taoism, Confucianism, Buddhism, Judaism and Islam all playing major roles. One of the most complex parts of Asian culture is the relationship between traditional cultures and the Western world.

Nationalities and ethnic groups

There are an abundance of ethnic groups throughout Asia, with adaptations to the climate zones of Asia, which can perate, subtropical or tropical. The ethnic groups have adapted to mountains, deserts, grasslands, and forests. On the coasts of Asia, the ethnic groups have adopted various methods of harvest and transport. Some groups are primarily hunter-gatherers, some practice transhumance (nomadic lifestyle), others have been agrarian/rural for millennia and others are becoming industrial/urban. Some groups/countries of Asia are completely urban (Singapore and Hong Kong). The colonization of Asia was largely ended in the twentieth century, with national drives for independence and self-determination across the continent.

East Asia

Main article: East Asian cultural sphere

The countries of China, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam share a common social philosophy, religions, political structures, and historically a single written language.

East Asia is usually thought to consist of China, Japan, North Korea, South Korea and Taiwan. The dominant influence historically has been China, though in modern times, cultural exchange has flowed more bi-directionally. Major characteristics of this region include shared Chinese-derived language characteristics, as well as shared religion, especially Buddhism and Taoism. There is also a shared social and moral philosophy derived from Confucianism.

The Chinese script is the oldest continuously used writing system in the world, and has long been a unifying principle of East Asia, as the medium for conveying Chinese culture. It was historically used throughout the region, and is still used in by ethnic Chinese throughout the world, as well as in Japan and to a small and waning extent in South Korea. Within China, the meanings of the characters remain generally unchanged from region to region, though their pronunciations differ. This is because Classical Chinese was long the written language of all China, and was replaced by Mandarin as the national written language in the twentieth century.

Chinese writing was passed on to Korea, Japan and Vietnam. In Japan, the set of Chinese characters used are called Kanji and form a major component of the Japanese writing system. In the 9th century, Japanese developed their own writing systems called Kana (Hiragana and Katakana) which support Kanji script to suit Japanese language. Today, both ideograph Kanji and syllabary Kana is used in mixture in Japanese. In Vietnam, Chinese script (Han Tu) was used during the millennium under the influence of China, with the vernacular Chu Nom script are also used since 13th century. However, this has now (since the early 20th century) been replaced completely by the Latin Alphabet-based Quoc Ngu. In the 15th century, Korea developed an alphabet system called Hangul to make writing and communication easier for its commoners.

In these cultures, especially in China and Japan the educational level of person is traditionally measured by the quality of his or her calligraphy, rather than diction, as is sometimes the case in the west.

Though Korea, Japan and Vietnam are not Chinese speaking regions, their languages have been influenced by Chinese to some extent. Even though their writing systems have changed over time, Chinese is still found in the historical roots of many borrowed words. Though in modern times, Chinese is also influenced by other Asian languages, especially modern technical and political terms created in Japan to represent western concepts. For example, 文化(culture), 文明(civilization), 人民(people), 経済(economy), 共和(republic) and 哲学(philosophy) are borrowed words from Chinese to Japanese. (ja:和製漢語, zh:和製漢語)

Apart from the unifying influence of Confucianism, Buddhism, Chinese characters, and other Chinese Cultural Influences, there is nevertheless much diversity between the countries of the region such as different religions, national costumes, languages, writing systems, cuisines, traditional music and so on.

South Asia

Language families in South Asia

Traditional Rajasthani garments from Jaipur, Rajasthan

The four South Indian states and northern parts of Sri Lanka share a Dravidian culture, due to the prominence of Dravidian languages there. Pakistan is split with its two western regions of Baluchistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa sharing a greater Iranian heritage due to the native Pashtuns and Baloch people of the regions. The western parts of Pakistan are due to this closely linked with Afghanistan, and therefore most of Afghanistan and western Pakistan share the same culturally and ethnicity. However, its two eastern provinces of Sindh and Punjab share a more Indo-Aryan culture. Bangladesh and the state of West Bengal share a common heritage and culture based on the Bengali language.

Nepal, Bhutan, the states of Sikkim, Arunachal Pradesh, Ladakh in the state of Jammu and Kashmir and parts of the states of Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand have a great cultural similarity to Tibet, Tibetan Buddhism being the dominant religion there. Finally the border states of Assam, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Manipur, Nagaland and Tripura have cultural affinities with South East Asia.

Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism, the four major world religions founded in the region that is today's India, are spread throughout the subcontinent. Islam, Judaism, and Christianity also have significant region-specific histories. While 80% of Indians are Hindus and Nepal is a Hindu-majority State, Sri Lanka and Bhutan have a majority of Buddhists. Islam is the predominant religion of Pakistan and some of Bangladesh. It also is the majority religion in Afghanistan, with a very small minority nowadays left to be professing Sikhism and Hinduism.

Indo-Aryan languages are spoken in Pakistan, Sinhalese of Sri Lanka and most of North, West and East India and Nepal. Dravidian languages are spoken in South India and in Sri Lanka by Tamil community. Tibeto-Burman languages are spoken in the North and North East India. Iranian Languages are spoken in Baluchistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in Pakistan. The main languages of Afghanistan are Pashto and Dari.

Southeast Asia

Southeast Asia consists of Mainland Southeast Asia, and Maritime Southeast Asia. Southeast Asia is usually thought to include Burma, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, Indonesia, the Philippines and East Timor. As the crossroads of maritime Silk Road trade network since ancient times, the region has been greatly influenced by the cultures and religions of neighboring region of India and China as well as the religions Islam and Hinduism and Buddhism from Southwest Asia. The culture of Southeast Asian nations is diverse, ranged from tribal culture to sophisticated civilizations that created architectural wonders such as Angkor of Cambodia and Borobudur of Indonesia.

Buddhist culture has lasting and significant impact in mainland Indochina nations; (Burma, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam). In the case of Vietnam, it is more influenced by the culture of China. Historically Hindu-Buddhist influence also present in Maritime Southeast Asia, in Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei. However Islam has become the dominant religion in these countries in modern times, and defining culture especially among Malay culture. Southeast Asia has also had a lot of Western influence due to the lasting legacy of colonialism. One example is the Philippines which has been heavily influenced by America and Spain due to nearly four centuries of foreign rule. East Timor also demonstrate Portuguese influence through colonialism. Another western influence is Christianity.

A common feature found around the region are stilt houses. Another shared feature is rice paddy agriculture, which originated in Southeast Asia thousands of years ago. Dance drama is also a very important feature of the culture, utilizing movements of the hands and feet perfected over thousands of years. Furthermore, the arts and literature of Southeast Asia is very distinctive as some have been influenced by Indian, Hindu, Chinese, Buddhist and Islamic literature.

West Asia

Grand Mosque in Kuwait City is one of the biggest mosques in the region

West Asia largely corresponds with the term 'Middle East', although some prefer 'West Asia' due to perceived Eurocentrism in the former. West Asia consists of Turkey, Cyprus, Syria, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Iraq, Iran, Lebanon, Jordan, Israel, Palestinian territories, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Oman and Yemen. The region is the historical birthplace of the Jews, Assyrians, Arabs, Druze, Persians, Turks, and various other ethnic and national groups. It is also where the 3 Abrahamic faiths originated: Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Today, the region is almost 93% Muslim and is dominated by Islamic politics, although one country (Israel) is mostly Jewish. Two countries are Christian, namely Armenia and Georgia. Culturally, the region is Arab, Persian, Azerbaijani, Turkish, and Hebrew. Many countries in the Middle East are desert and thus many nomadic groups exist today. On the other hand, modern metropolises also exist on the shifting sands: Abu Dhabi, Amman, Riyadh, Tel Aviv, Doha and Muscat. The climate is mostly of a desert climate however some of the coastal regions have a more temperate climate. On the other hand, the Anatolian plateau (Turkey, Armenia) is very mountainous and thus has a more temperate climate while the coasts have a distinct Mediterranean climate. The Persian Plateau (Iran, Azerbaijan, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Turkmenistan) has a diverse terrain, it is mainly mountainous with portions of desert, steppe and tropical forest on the coast of the Caspian Sea. The tropical forest, unique in West Asia, straddles the southern and southwestern shores of the Caspian Sea, and is shared between Iran and Azerbaijan. West Asian cuisine is immensely rich and diverse. The literature is also immensely rich with Arabic, Jewish, Persian, and Turkish dominating.

Central Asia

Central Asia consists of five former Soviet Socialist Republics: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikstan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. However, Afghanistan is sometimes included. The predominant religion in Central Asia is Islam. Central Asia has a long rich history mainly based on its historic position on the famous Silk Road. It has been conquered by Mongols, Persians, Tatars, Russians, Sarmatian and thus has a very distinct, vibrant culture. The culture is influenced by Chinese, South Asian, Persian, Arabian, Turkish, Russian, Sarmatian and Mongolian cultures. The people of the steppes of Central Asia have historically been nomadic people but a unifying state was established in Central Asia in the 16th century: The Kazakh Khanate.

The music of Central Asia is rich and varied. Central Asian cuisine is one of the most prominent cuisines of Asia, with cuisines from Pakistan, India, China and Azerbaijan especially showing significant influence from the foods of Central Asia. Some of the most famous Central Asian foods are manti and pilaf.

The (ancient) literature of Central Asia is linked with Persian literature as historically the region has long been part of the Persian Empire. Furthermore, being at the junction of the Silk Road it has numerous Chinese, Indian and Arabian literary works.

North Asia

For the most part, North Asia (more widely known as Siberia) is considered to be made up of the Asian part of Russia solely. The geographic region of Siberia was the historical land of the Tatars in the Siberia Khanate. However Russian expansion essentially undermined this and thus today it is under Russian rule. There are roughly 40 million people living in North Asia and the majority is now Ethnic Russians while Indigenous Siberians have become a minority in North Asia.

Architecture

A typical example of Dravidian architecture

Asia features many distinctive styles of architecture. A number of ancient and symbolic structures still stand, such as Islamic mosques and the castles of Japan. Angkor Wat in Cambodia is perhaps the most iconic structure in Asia and is represented on the country's flag. However, many traditional architectural styles have either been destroyed, lost, or replaced by Western contemporary architecture for new development and construction.

China

Main article: Chinese architecture

Many Buddhist temples are well-known examples of Chinese architecture.

India

Main article: Architecture of India

Japan

Main article: Japanese architecture

In Japan, some wooden temples from the Nara period are over 1,000 years old. Although some parts have been replaced, much of the original structure is said to be intact. During the era of feudalism in Japan, many castles were constructed. Wooden castles were often destroyed or dismantled during the shift from feudalism during the Meiji Restoration. Intact examples include Himeji Castle (14th century) and Hikone Castle (17th century). Reconstructed examples include Osaka Castle. Japanese architecture is distinctive and recognized throughout the world.

Art

Detail of Dragon Throne used by the Qianlong Emperor of China, Forbidden City, Qing Dynasty. Artifact circulating in U.S. museums on loan from Beijing

Visual arts

Crafts

See also: Vietnamese embroidery