Although recent events have been the most influential factor in shaping generational attitudes and biases, this is a largely understood, already heavily researched problem that has been made the poster child of modern East Asian studies and international relations. Furthermore, I’ve always believed that a true understanding of the cultural psyche of a country or nation-state requires a comprehensive look at the evolution of the country from antiquity to the present day - as well as its historical relationship with neighboring entities. This is especially true for Japan and Korea, two countries that have been so intertwined historically, culturally, and genetically that discourse around one for any given period of history cannot exist without the context of the other.

From August 29th to September 9th 2024, I travelled to Japan to explore my interests in the anthropological origins of these two cultures in depth, specifically through the lens of linguistic and cultural evolution that occurred through ancient human migration back and forth from the Korean peninsula to the Japanese mainland. The purpose of this trip was not to come to some sort of definitive conclusion, thesis, or establish a political opinion - but just to explore the cultural roots of Japan and better understand the network of interchange that contributed to the evolution of Japanese heritage.

I arrived in Tokyo on the first day, where the first thing I noticed - from the signs on the restrooms to billboards in the city proper - was that most, if not all signage was presented in multiple languages, including English, Korean and Chinese. This was especially true in areas densely populated with tourists. After going through some crash course on how to read katakana and hiragana, I walked around phonetically sounding out various commonly used words found on the street, and noticed how similar many words in Chinese are to their Korean and Japanese counterparts. This is due to the historical influence of the sinosphere, and the assimilation of Chinese vocabulary and roots into both languages, in similar words. However, a discussion with a Japanese historian and reading the works of linguist Alexander Vovin upon his recommendation revealed some even deeper connections between Korean and Japanese completely separate from Chinese influence. The great Yayoi migration of Japan occurred thousands of years ago, in which proto-Japonic speaking people living on the southern tip of the Korean peninsula made a mass exodus to the Japanese islands. These people became one of the foundational populations of the modern Yamato Japanese ethnicity. Vovin postulated that these ancient people on what is now the Korean peninsula spoke a language referred to as “Peninsular Old Japonic”, which can be traced using ancient words referring to nature, wildlife, and animist beliefs that were carried over (eg. “shima” (J) /”seom” (K) [island], “kuma” (J) / “kom” (K) [bear]). Placenames that have been extensively cross-referenced with Chinese literary works from the same period also support this theory. It was quite interesting, albeit not surprising, to learn that these two countries share an ancient linguistic lineage with words that survive to the present day. 

In the following 3 days, I traveled to Kyoto via Shinkansen to experience some of Japan’s more historical offerings. The first day in Kyoto, I explored Teramachi-dori shopping street and market, and made the long hike up to Kiyomizudera temple, which was a contender for some UNESCO heritage award that I now forget the name of (it should have won, it was outstandingly scenic). However, more interesting was the Buddhist history behind the development of this temple, which was first built in the 7th century during the Nara Period. The schools of Buddhism that came out of the Nara period were highly influenced by the Tang dynasty of China, which was also influenced to a large extent by the Korean state of Silla. This was a period when Japan-Silla relations were very good, which facilitated migration of people, envoys and Buddhist priests back and forth between China, Korea and Japan. It was interesting to think about how the spread of Buddhism contributed to linguistic admixture through religious terms, and words from other cultures that were adopted by these countries on the path that Buddhism took. While walking through the villages, shops, and cafes at the foothills of Kiyomizudera temple, what I found particularly interesting is that at some point, both Buddhist and general architecture in Japan seemed to diverge from the rest of Asia, and the period at which this happens coincides with when Balhae, a nation-state in modern-day Korea, began to form. As Balhae took over power during the North-South Kingdoms period in Korea, political relationships with Japan began to sour, minimizing the flow of diplomats, envoys and overall culture to/from Japan and the asian mainland. Overall, it was quite interesting to think about the effects of historical events on the development of Japanese heritage.