How Japans location affected its society
Japan is made up of islands and is surrounded by water, thus resulting in military advantages. Only ship building people could attempt to invade. It was also harder to invade because it was easy to see any ship coming towards it from the peaks of the Japanese mountains. With no bordering countries and only close water access from Korea, China and a small part of Russia, Japan also had minimal trade. As a result this meant that Japan and its people did not mix much with other countries either in terms of influencing their cultural activities or beliefs but also very little marriage. Japan's culture stayed more traditional and its people less genetically altered than if it had been in a more accessible location. It also meant less exposure to disease but also less exposure to new ideas. When they did trade and exchange ideas they did adopt some things from other countries. For example, with China and they integrated Buddhism and the Chinese writing Kanji. Now days Kanji is used in nearly all of Japanese words and Buddhism is very popular. You can still see this reflected today in the strong traditions in modern Japan and the lower level of multiculturalism compared to other first world countries. |