Case Study in Contemporary Japanese Culture

I choose to do a case study on the cultural and religious difference between contemporary Japan

and China. I choose this topic because I always considered them to be about the same nationality.

I wanted to learn more about them individually and to compare their similarities and differences.

I found these qualifications remarkably interesting, and I hope you will too.

I was surprised to read that China is an atheist country, which means that they do not believe in

religion. This does not mean all of them do not have religious beliefs. Chinese do practice

Buddhism, Confucianism and other minor religions too. Japanese religion was Shinto for several

years, until Buddhism was introduced from China to them. Japan took Buddhism and merged it

with Shinto to make it only Japanese. Japan does practice Confucianism also.

China is more diverse than Japan. China nationality is from Koreans, Mongolians, Russians, and

Vietnamese. Japan comes from descents or ancestors that are originally from Japan. Even though

China is more diverse than Japan they are both very family-oriented countries. Families and their

family values are extremely important to them.

I think the most different characteristic between the two is their government. Japanese have a

capitalism government which is what we have here in the United States. China has a socialism

government party. Which means that it is ran by one single party. China is very censored by their

government and cannot have a lot of freedom. For an example their internet, they can only see

what the government lets them see. Japan has more freedom from their government.

Their environment is something else that is quite different. China is very dirty and filled with

garbage. There is litter all over the streets. You can not drink the water in China and the air

pollution is high. Chinese pollution is so high that they were mask to shield them from the

pollution. Japan’s water is drinkable, and it is a very clean country. There is not litter on the
streets. The pollution level is very low too. Which this does not surprise me because they value

nature so highly.

What I learned in class over the past weeks is that Japan works together. They work together as a

whole instead of individual. Japanese people help each other to get the work done. This is how

their jobs are too. China jobs are different because they work as an individual and are done

working when their job is done for the day.

Another fun fact is that there are multiple languages that China have but only have one written

language. While Japan has multiple written languages but only have one spoken language.

I have attached a video about the difference of languages and vocabulary to help you understand

the difference more.

Chinese people are very loud and tend to try to over talk each other. Other nationalities might

take this as them being disrespectful. Japanese are very quiet and keep to themselves. Japanese

find it rude to show public affection to one other, while public affection is very common.

Japan and China both feel education is important to their children. They both will invest time and

money into their children’s education. They know in order to advance as a county and to keep up

with others they have to be educated and have skills. Both countries are constantly trying to

develop better skills for their technology.

I hope you enjoyed these facts about China and Japan. I know through research I learned some

pretty neat facts. Follow the links below for more information.
10 Major Cultural Differences Between China and Japan - Asian Minato

How Similar Are Chinese and Japanese? - Bing video

The Cultural Differences and Similarities Between China and Japan - Historyplex