Culture of Asia

Culture of Asia
From Wikipedia

The culture of Asia is the artificial aggregate of the cultural heritage of many nationalities, societies, religions, 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 the Caucasus, Central Asia, East Asia, South Asia (the "Indian subcontinent"), North Asia, Southwest Asia and Southeast Asia. Geographically, Asia is not a distinct continent; culturally, there has been little unity or common history for many of the cultures and peoples ofAsia.



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 Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, Confucianism, Islam, and Christianity 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 be Arctic, subarctic, temperate, 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

East Asia is usually thought to consist of China, Japan, and Korea. 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 generally agreed to be the unifying principle. It was historically used throughout the region, and is still used to some extent in most countries of the region. In most cases, the meaning of the characters remain unchanged, but the pronunciation differs between regions. Even within China, for example, a Cantonese person and a person from northern China probably cannot hold a conversation, but they can certainly understand each other by passing notes. The Chinese writing system is the oldest continuous writing system in the world (but by no means primitive). It was passed on first to Korea, and was the main writing system there until the end of World War II, and to Japan, where it now forms a major component of the Japanese writing system. In Vietnam, classical Chinese (Han Tu) was used during the millennium of Chinese rule, with the vernacular Chu Nom script replacing it later on. However, this has now (since the early 20th century) been replaced completely by the Latin Alphabet-based Quoc Ngu. 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 and Japan are not Chinese speaking regions, their languages have been heavily influenced by Chinese. Even though their writing systems have changed over time (with limited use of Chinese characters in Korea), Chinese is still found in the historical roots of many borrowed words, especially technical terms.

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.

South Asia (Indian Subcontinent)

Some North Indian states and the nations of Pakistan and Afghanistan share a common heritage from the Indus Valley Civilization and the Maurya, Kushan, Gupta and Mughal empires. The four South Indian states and Sri Lanka share a Dravidian culture, due to the prominence of Dravidian languages there. 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, Uttaranchal have a great cultural similarity to Tibet, Tibetan Buddhism being the dominant religion there. Finally the states of Assam, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Manipur, Nagaland and Tripura have great 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. 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 pre-dominant religion of Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Indo-Aryan languages are spoken in Pakistan and most of North, West and East India and Nepal. Dravidian languages are spoken in South India and Sri Lanka. Tibeto-Burman languages are spoken in the North and North East India.


Southeast Asia


Southeast Asia consists of Mainland Southeast Asia and Maritime Southeast Asia. The region has been greatly influenced by the cultures and religions of India and China as well as the religions Islam and Christianity from Southwest Asia. 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 due to the invasion.

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 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 literat
ure.

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