Change And Continuity Of East Asia Essay

East Asia has comparatively long history; as a result, culture of this region is one of the richest in the world. China in turn can be identify as source of many different traditions for other countries as Korea and Japan. Chinese history is about five thousand years old, the first empire was established in 221 BC after Qin Shi Huang had unified China. The imperial dynastic system of government continued for centuries. China was even ruled at times by foreign invaders, such as the Mongols during the Yuan Dynasty and the Manchus during the Qing Dynasty, but the foreigners were largely absorbed into the culture they governed. 1911 became a turning point in Chinese history – the last dynasty was overthrown, started period of revolution until People's Republic of China with a Communist government was established in 1949. Communist party have controlled China ever since. An important moment is possibility of cultural continuity during that long full of events period of time.

First point in this question is what cultural continuity means. Oxford dictionary defines ‘continuity’ as the

It means that such form has its own principles of life, standards of behavior, national customs, once appeared they have an influence on people for a very long time. Finally, they become an inseparable part of national consciousness. For this reason it is less subjected to transformation, and all efforts to bring new into this culture come to naught. Another reason why Chinese culture does not exposure to changes is Chinese perception of the world. In Chinese this country is named Zhongguo, which means "middle kingdom". It demonstrates how Chinese people did not perceive other nations as equal, others were vassals of China, and so they could not learn from ‘barbarians’. One more cause of cultural sustainability were several periods in Chinese history when it was isolated from the outside