“The Settings of East Asian History”,
in John K. Fairbanks, Edwin O. Reischauer, Albert M. Craig,
East Asia: Tradition and Transformation
(London: Allen and Unwin, 1975, 2nd Edition), pp. 1-16.
East Asia can be defined in three ways:
- Geographic Terms: the area east of the great mountain and desert barrier that bisects Asia.
- Racial Terms: Habitat of the Mongoloid man (except for the Eskimo and American Indian branches of that race),
- Cultural Terms: The domain of a civilization rooted in that of ancient China.
China, Japan, Korean and Vietnam derived much of their higher culture and their primary system of writing from the ancient China. East Asia is "the China culture area”.
Apart from this area, there are other two large ones at the east of the great barrier and basically Mongoloid in population.
- Inner Asia: Mongolia, Sinkiang (Chinese Turkestan) and Tibet. The nomadic people of these regions have seen their histories interwoven with that of China through commerce, war, and conquest. (Ashok, 2011)(https://uyghuramerican.org/article/china-cracks-down-reporting-tibet-and-east-turkestan.html)
- South East Asia: it comprises the countries of Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar (Burma), Thailand, Vietnam and West Malaysia (Peninsular Malaysia), the other is the Malay Archipelago, or Maritime Southeast Asia, which comprises the countries of: Brunei (on the island of Borneo), East Malaysia (with the Malayan states of Sabah and Sarawak on the northern part of Borneo), all the islands of Indonesia, the Philippines, Singapore and Timor-Leste (East Timor.(http://www.nationsonline.org/oneworld/map_of_southeast_asia.htm)
Most important facts about East Asia (Western’s point of view)
- The vast number of people who live in the region.
- The rapid growth and change that the region experiments.
- The different way of life, distinguishing it from the West’s lifestyle.
The need for Historical Understanding.
Mutual understanding between the people of the West and the East Asia is needed by understanding and appreciation the attitudes, ideals and forms of self-expression but the cultural gap is enormous.
Westerners have achieved a far more favorable balance between population and natural resources than has been the case in East Asia, and this economic gap perpetuates and sometimes heightens the cultural differences.
China, Korea , Japan and Vietnam demonstrate alternative systems of value and belief, different traditions of aesthetic experience, and different forms of literary expression.East Asian people are fully aware of their cultural heritage .
The essence of the present turmoil in East Asia is the interaction between new forces, many of which were derived from the West, and traditional habits and models of thinking.
History of East Asia region:
- Evolution of traditional East Asian civilization (relative isolation for 3,000 years)
- Upheavals and transformation of the civilization in recent times (contact with the Modern Western World)
Land, People and Languages.
Natural Environment.
The Climate of East Asia is determinate by the great land mass of Asia. In winter becomes very cold and heavy; in the summer the reverse takes place. Due to the monsoon winds India have ample rainfall during the best growing months. Climate gave East Asia an agricultural pattern quite different from that of the West.
West cattle raising and sheep herding became fundamental part of the economy, but in the more intensive agriculture of Was Asia domesticated animals were used less and manpower more. The chief cereal of the West has been wheat, while in the most part of East Asia and much of India has been rice, which grows best in flooded fields and is well adapted to the hot, wet summers in this area. Producing much larger yields per acre than wheat, rice supports a heavier population on the land.
The range of skin color among Mongoloids, from very light in the North to dark brown in the southern areas such as Indonesia, is clearly a product of environment, as is the comparable color range in the so-colled white race. The other distinctive features of Mongoloid man are straight black hair, relatively flat faces , and dark eyes. Mongoloids are not limited to East Asia, some of them spilled westward north of the great barrier. The Eskimos represent a relatively recent incursion of the Mongoloid race into North America, while the American Indians themselves are thought to have come originally from Siberia by way of Alaska.
Mongoloids were not the sole occupants of this side of the world. Other were the Ainu, restricted to the northern extremities of Japan. They have facial and body hair, a feature notably lacking in most Mongoloids.
Sinitic Language.
The largest linguistic division in East Asia is the Sinitic (Sino-Tibetan) family of languages. it occupies a very solid block in the center of East Asia, Tibet, Thailand, Laos, most of Burma and perhaps Vietnam. Within this group, Chinese is by far the largest subdivision.
Altaic and Other Languages Groups.
This linguistic family has been named Altaic after the Altai Mountains in Mongolia, people who were nomadic, horse-riding sheepherders.
Turkish, Mongolian, and Tungusic are usually considered to be the three major Altaic languages groups.
A third great linguistic family of this region is the Austronesian: Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines and the aborigines of Taiwan.
River Systems.
The Yellow River (黄河）is some 2700 miles in length. From earliest times Chinese administrators have had to construct dikes to keep it within its channel.
The Yangtze River (长江）is a larger river then the Yellow. It is 3200 miles in length. This river is navigable, as the Yellow River is not.
Climate.
China lies far south of most of Europe. Beijing is south of both Naples and Madrid; Canton is in the same latitude as the Sahara desert. Beijing is corresponding to Philadelphia, Shanghai to Mobile and Canton to Havana, Cuba.
China’s Traditional Economy and Society.
China’s greatest natural resource has always been her agricultural land. They have not been able to afford the raising of animals for food, aside from the scavengers, pigs and chicken.
China’s economic life has been labor-intensive, it has always depended upon human muscle-power, such as the labor in the famous silk industry requires and endless labor.
The family system was both hierarchic and authoritarian. The status of each person depended on this position by birth or marriage. The arrangement of marriages by the respective families was made most of the times by wise matchmakers. Marriage was more a union of families than individuals.
Women traditionally obeyed their fathers in youth, this husbands in middle life, and theirs sons in old age. They were expected not to remarry if widowed; men on the contrary could take secondary wives and concubines into the household.
The role of the emperor and his officials was merely that of the father writ large. Law was a necessary tool of administration but personal morality was the foundation of society. Chinese society was firmly knit together by Confucianism.
Society was traditionally divided into four clases:
- Scholar-administratiors (warrior-aristhocrat in ancient times)
- Farmers
- Artisans
- Merchants
The scholar-administrators was presumed to be morally superior because they were educated people.
