What period in China's history...

[Light Samurai]

What period in China's history was the most influential in Japan's history? Because I'm wondering if I should get other books related to Sun-Tzu's Art of War. Thanks all.

[Musha]

I think the Japanese try to cover up there contact with other countries. Like the anual wars they had with China and Korea. China influenced Japans art and buildings when Japan was starting out but it wasn't a set thing you can tell the date of. Its like you asking when France most influenced England?

BTW The Sangoku shi is very popular in Japan, it was a war between three lords about 1800 years ago. There are afew games here, don't know about other countries. A good one I just bought is Shinsangokushi 3, the new one is too expencive for me :D.

[Optomitrist]

not wuite sure what time period. chinese swords were imported around 300ade give or take a couple hundred years. Besides that, the architecture came from the toaist thoughts of circular motion and lack of straight lines. Not to mension confucius. All of this around 500-600ADE. i dont know when buddhism hit though.

[jasmine]

What period in China's history was the most influential in Japan's history? Because I'm wondering if I should get other books related to Sun-Tzu's Art of War. Thanks all.

I think it was "TANG" dynasty.Chinese and Japanese communicated with each other frequently at that time.So a lot of food,clothes and something other artists appeared in Japanese from "TANG"

[Optomitrist]

I do know that in tokugawa's time (1500-1600's), silk was the crave. (not that you care). THe chinese would not allow traders from japan to dock in chinese harbors due to the japanese pirates. SO the only way they traded with china was through the new found westerners (dutch mostly). Didn't take long before the westerners screwed everything up and they kicked us all out for a couple hundred years. bummer.

[ISSAC RU]

the kihon that japanese are talking about is mostly on budo..
The original Kihon s ( Chinese kihon ) are mostly on warfares....

getting that Sun-Tzu book is not going to help you to any chinese history
unless you read and understand the period of ChunQiu period.

Chinese influence on Japan , you should start with the dynasty of Tang...

[calpaladin]

in Japan peaked during the Tang Dynasty. Chinese influence started around the late fifth, early sixth centuries A.D., with the introduction of Buddhism by Korean monks. This began during the Sui Dynasty, but the Tang really did a lot to push Buddhism to Japan.

Accounts vary on why the monks were sent to Japan. The Korean histories state that the Japanese were savages and their pirates were ravaging the area and that the monks were sent on a "civilizing" mission" (didn't work with regards to the pirates). Japanese historical accounts state that Prince Shotoku captured the monks and forced them to teach Buddhism. The truth, as with most things in history, is probably in-between...

With the massive growth of Buddhism, Japan did everything it could to import more of it over. The oldest family owned businesses in the world are actually Korean and Chinese families that immigrated to Japan at during this time to build Buddhist temples (the oldest being the Kongo Gumi - http://www.kongogumi.co.jp/home.htm).

Katakana (the manuscript form of the Japanese syllabic alphabet) was developed at this time (about the 8th-9th centuries) by Buddhist monks. They used Sanskrit syllables and sounds, altered to fit the Japanese language, to create the alphabet (hiragana wasn't developed until much later and not widely used until the mid-Tokugawa). This was so that the Japanese could read and recite the Buddhist prayers (na-mu a-mi-da...etc...).

Thanks to the Buddhist and Tang Dynasty influence, the Japanese emperors began the Taika reforms. These were attempts by the Japanese emperor to reform the government along the Tang dynasty model, including court etiquette, diplomacy, writing, and Confucian philosophy. This is probably when Sun-Tzu's Art of War came to Japan, along with all the other ancient Chinese Classical writings and books. These reforms, however, weren't popular with most Japanese people.

Unfortunately, as in China and Korea, Buddhist influence got a little too strong, weakening the aristocracy, and attempts were made by the monks to control the emperor. China and Korea responded to these attempts by killing the monks and confiscating monastery land. Japan responded by moving the capital from Nara to Kyoto and enhancing the power of the aristocracy to counter the monks.

Also around this time (9th century), with the weakening of Imperial power, the countryside families consolidated their power, leading to clans of warriors. These groups grew in influence, and did their best to resist the Chinese influence. These guys also started to kill Buddhist monks and confiscate monastery land if the monks got too powerful.

As we all here should know, these warrior clans began to be called bushi or samurai, and they formed a social class that ended up controlling the islands. After the Genpei Wars, the emperor was reduced to little more than a puppet until the Meiji Restoration (1868).

When the Tang fell around 900 A.D., Chinese influence pretty much disappears, since China is fractured into the Five Dynasties/Ten Kingdoms period (about 50 years of infighting between regions). China doesn't really grow in strength again or become a ridiculously huge empire until the Yuan Dynasty (the Mongols) from the mid 13th to mid-14th centuries.

Then Mongols had this tendency of invading Japan, so contacts with China trickled even more. After the Mongols stopped invading, the two emperors began to address each other as "Lord of the Land of the Rising Sun" (Japan) and "Lord of the Land of the Setting Sun" (China).

When the Ming came into power, contacts grew, thanks again to those Japanese pirates. It was around this time when the Japanese shogun, Yoshimitsu wrote to the Chinese emperor "your subject, the king of Japan" (Chinese historical accounts call this a sign of tribute while Japanese accounts differ, especially since the Japanese had their own emperor at the time, however ceremonial...again, the truth is lost to the ages).

During the Tokugawa (1600-1868), foreign influence was heavily restricted until some guy named Perry scared the Japanese into talking to all foreigners in 1853-1854. By this time, China isn't much of a power, and Japan decided to follow the European and American ways.


That, in a very small nutshell, should answer your question. If you need further details, I'll probably have to look over my notes from school. If it helps, I did focus on East Asian history at Berkeley, so most of this post is not coming from my ass. Some people in here (the ultra-sensitive nationalists of whatever country - disclaimer: I am Korean) will probably disagree with some or all of this account, but it's about as close as we'll get to the truth.

[Lazken]

nice post!

[Optomitrist]

calpaladin,

Keep writing, I must know more... :)

[npk9]

I have to concur - pls explain more.

[iam_pk]

actually depends on if u ar interested in Sun-Tzu's Art of War or not
coz Sun-Tzu's Art of War came out around Chunqui period( BC770-BC476 ), and japan didnt influenced by chinese until (AD6)tang dynasty.
anyway his thinking still affect us a lot. ie. napoleon became the france king because he read it and use the theory inside; during the gulf war, the us army all hav one copy for each soldier and sailor~

[ChaShu]

Excellent post Calpaladin! Pretty much jives with what I had learned in school. Chinese influence on Japan extended to things such as city planning and societal hierarchy (CH scholar/official, farmer, artisan, soldier, merchant vs. JP samurai/official, farmer, artisan, merchant), early military strategy and structure (pre samurai), etc... Light Samurai, IMHO I would recommend The Art Of War whether or not its popularity in Japan occurred at the peak of Chinese influence. It is an excellent primer on strategy of any medium or longer term endeavour and a co-text to Go Rin No Sho which is primarily a text on swordsmanship and Hagakure and Bushido, which are both more focussed on the person specifically. Another great companion book to The Art Of War is The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli, more a political/interpersonal strategic guide. As for a translation of Art Of War, I suggest The Art Of Strategy by R.I. Wing and is in both English and Chinese and divided so that you read a stanza a week for 52 weeks.

[Light Samurai]

Thanks everyone for the great feedback! This answers my question, and any more related stuff is defiantly welcomed!
Peace, and Love,
Rick-san.

[calpaladin]

Anything specific regarding East Asian history?


Regarding Sun Tzu's Art of War, I would suggest using the Gagliardi "Art of War Plus" transations - it's a very recent work, only 5 or so years old.

There are multiple volumes. The first volume (Ancient Chinese) has it with the Chinese characters on one side and the basic English translation on the other. The second volume (Warrior Class) is much, much more in depth, containing a lot of the commentary over the years.

Don't bother with the rest of his work - they are targeted towards business-people or idiots with life problems (I'm not hating; can't stop a guy from trying to make money, but you gotta tell it like it is).

I like these better than the Cleary translation, which seems to be the standard. Haven't read the Wing translation though - I'll look for it sometime soon.

Another important book would be Miyamoto Musashi's Book of Five Rings and Yagyu Munenori's Book of Family Traditions on the War of War. In terms of Kendo/kumdo, these books were very influential (written about the same time during the early Tokugawa).

The Yagyu book especially (they were pretty much the Shogun's main spy group - read Lone Wolf and Cub for a fictionalized view of their influence).

To understand the influence of the Yagyu, modern Kendo was standardized mainly around the rules and forms of the Yagyu clan while the school of the Yagyu clan is the direct ancestor of today's Tokyo University.



calpaladin,

Keep writing, I must know more... :)

[Light Samurai]

Anything specific regarding East Asian history?


Regarding Sun Tzu's Art of War, I would suggest using the Gagliardi "Art of War Plus" transations - it's a very recent work, only 5 or so years old.

There are multiple volumes. The first volume (Ancient Chinese) has it with the Chinese characters on one side and the basic English translation on the other. The second volume (Warrior Class) is much, much more in depth, containing a lot of the commentary over the years.

Don't bother with the rest of his work - they are targeted towards business-people or idiots with life problems (I'm not hating; can't stop a guy from trying to make money, but you gotta tell it like it is).

I like these better than the Cleary translation, which seems to be the standard. Haven't read the Wing translation though - I'll look for it sometime soon.

Another important book would be Miyamoto Musashi's Book of Five Rings and Yagyu Munenori's Book of Family Traditions on the War of War. In terms of Kendo/kumdo, these books were very influential (written about the same time during the early Tokugawa).

The Yagyu book especially (they were pretty much the Shogun's main spy group - read Lone Wolf and Cub for a fictionalized view of their influence).

To understand the influence of the Yagyu, modern Kendo was standardized mainly around the rules and forms of the Yagyu clan while the school of the Yagyu clan is the direct ancestor of today's Tokyo University.

In my version of the ARt of War, there is a huge historical Introduction. There mainly focused on the Warring states and the Spring and Autumn ra dynasties. They talk about Vh'in and stuff, and it isn't even on the map that they had in the book. Generally, I'm having a hard time understanding who's attacking who, except for thw three major states: Wu, Yueh, and Ch'u. More on the area around those periods wlould be helpful :)
Thanks all!
Peace, love, and Oro (:p) ,
Rick.

[calpaladin]

Dang....that was one crazy period in Chinese history (about 700-500 B.C.).

I really don't know the specifics on how each kingdom or general attacked each other and fought. It's a crazy time in history and it doesn't help that the Emperior Chin (about 200 B.C.) burned a shit load of books that date from this time.

Before the Spring and Autumn period and the Warring States was the Zhou dynasty, but they didn't really hold a huge territory as China would later on. When the Zhou fell due to barbarian attack, a lot of the city-states grew in strength. Anyway, larger states started to pick on the smaller ones, forcing them to be their bitches and becoming, basically, feudal overlords.

The big philosophers show up at this point - Confucius and LaoTze. Confucius wrote about the prevailing social order, hypothesized on why it came to be that way, and wrote about the rules of society (these rules were later taken and enforced rigidly in China and especially Korea...not so much in Japan since the warriors didn't really give a shit about them). LaoTze wrote the TaoTehChing - the basis of Taoism (uh...a bit more complex than Confucius...basically his writings focused on how one can become an enlightened, perfected individual by following the Tao, or the Way....someone else write about this...).

After seven distinct states consolidate, the Warring States period begins and lasts from 500-200 B.C. - these same seven states constantly fight through that time. The ideas of Confucius and LaoTze are expanded and become established philosophies. Buddhism slowly arrives from India.

There's a pretty big debate on whether Sun Tzu lived during the Spring and Autumn period or the Warring States period. Some feel that there was no one person. Others think that there was one Sun Tzu and later writers expanded his work. Hard to tell exactly what the truth is (thanks again to the Ermperor Chin for burning books...dumbass...).

The original work is traditionally set as 13 chapters. This was later expanded to, at most, 82 chapters (hard to say exactly) - either by the original writer or by subsequent ones. Parts of the expanded version were found about 30 years ago, along with the work of Sun Tzu's "descendant" Sun Pin. I think it's translated as "The Lost Art of War." There's another book that was also found, called "The Secret Art of War" or the 36 Strategies - these are a series of "what if" military questions and answers.

The original version of 13 chapters is the one everyone has (different translations will incorporate parts of the expanded version and the 36 strategies).

Frankly, this period from 700-200 B.C. is really muddled and a lot of books were burned afterwards by the Emperor Chin. I think the key idea to note is that some guy, Sun Tzu, wrote a book to get the attention of the nobles and kings and, unlike Machiavelli, people actually read his work and used it, allowing Sun Tzu to become really famous. People throughout the seven kingdoms used his work, along with those of other military philosophers, and fought each other over and over for 300 years. Due to all this fighting, it only natural that people would write about the battles and strategies that work.

Then, Chin became the dominant state and later, establishes the first empire where China is, pretty much as we know it today - ridiculously large in territory with a population that breeds like maggots.

[Light Samurai]

Thanks alot. Could I possibly find a map of all the states during that period? Thanks.

[Hisham]

Try this site (http://www.chinaknowledge.de/History/Division/sanguo-map.html) .

[iam_pk]

Try this site (http://www.chinaknowledge.de/History/Division/sanguo-map.html) .

thats fantastic!!!
it got english with chinese name~ thats much easier for me and i can learn english at the same time!!:D

[Inst]

Then, Chin became the dominant state and later, establishes the first empire where China is, pretty much as we know it today - ridiculously large in territory with a population that breeds like maggots.

You do have to make a comment here though.

Chinks and nearby civilizations, had advanced agricultural tech. When you have "Han v Romans, who'd win" arguments, people make arguments about logistics, that Romans had horse plows that had the great habit of choking the horse, while Han had plows that didn't cause this problem. Basically, if medieval/ancient Europe had the same agricultural tech as China, Japan, and Korea, they would have the same hilarious population problem.

Japan is somewhat of an exception: Tokugawa realized that their way of life was ecologically unsustainable: they were an island and there was a slight lack of resources: they really could do no iron mining and had to shift through sands for iron content, and the rate of deforestation was approaching dangerous levels.

Tokugawa Government: STOP! OR WE KILL YOU.

And Japs obeyed. Tokugawa used various methods to control Japanese population at sustainable levels, they were somewhat similar to a modern police state(since they ripped off Chink methods for highly efficient government approaching modern levels while the going was still good for China(Tang, Song was starting to decline, Yuan was just Mongols ruining the pot, Ming was more military than economic sense, and Qing did a passable job for a while), and Japan was quite a small country, thus easy to administer).

[ZealUK]

I think using terms such as "Jap" and "Chink" could easily be considered offensive.

I'd love to know your insights into the agricultural methods of ancient civilization. Also why you think overpopulation is "hilarious".

When ever did the Tokugawa Shogunate think that their way of life was unsustainable?

Your oversimplification of Chinese history is also ludicrous, frankly.

[Inst]

I won't talk about Chinese decline since Tang and Song, since apparently this is being debated by historians right now.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ming_dynasty

If you'll look it up, European farmers actually used uncontrolled dispersion to plant seeds, to start with.

http://library.thinkquest.org/23062/row.html

http://www.computersmiths.com/chineseinvention/ironplow.htm

[Akai Bushi]

Basically, if medieval/ancient Europe had the same agricultural tech as China, Japan, and Korea, they would have the same hilarious population problem.

Your looking at this all wrong. Different climates produce different amounts of grain. China has two and even three growing seasons in some areas. So China through history has been able to produce much more calories per acre than the west. Rice also produces much more calories per acre than wheat or cattle. So China's early population growth was due to having a large amount of food.

After the Han and the Roman empire fell Europe also kept a low population through religious wars and the plague. A third of Europe died in the plagues.

In additions using words like "Jap" and "Chink" are very racist. Those words are relices of the past. I don't know where your from, but I can imagin there aren't many Asians in your area due to your choice of vocabulary. You would have been corrected long ago if there were Chinese or Japanese with which you spoke like that to.

[Inst]

I am an East Asian(Asia is bullshit, all Asia is not one, contrary to Japanese panasianists. South Asians are in their own civilization, West Asians are part of Islamic civilization, Southeast Asia is slightly detached from the mainstream of East Asia, connected only by the Jews of Asia, overseas Chinese), ethnic Chinese by blood.

The usage of those words is an intentional apathy towards racism. If you are racist towards me, you are providing your own poison and you can hurt yourself without me having the lift a finger.

Wuwei(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wu_wei), I believe it is called. The best solution to a situation is when you apply minimum effort for maximum gain.

You're right about the climate too, but it's weird. Most countries in tropical or subtropical climates do not yield advanced civilizations. European civilization actually is probably subtropical, it arises from the mediterranean and Nordic nonsense is just that, nonsense.

[Philippe]

What period in China's history was the most influential in Japan's history? Because I'm wondering if I should get other books related to Sun-Tzu's Art of War. Thanks all.
Given your second sentence, it seems to me that looking into cultural influences, regardless of time period, would answer your question more directly.

Off the top of my head, Chinese books that are also important, to some extent, to the development of Japanese culture are the Dao De Jing (aka Tao Te Ching), the Analects (and other Confucian and Neo-Confucian* writings) and the Yi Jing (aka I Ching).

* Neo-, here, meaning "Ming era".

There are more, but my memory isn't cooperating just now.

[Light Samurai]

Thank you very much. I'll look into some of those books.

[Akai Bushi]

The usage of those words is an intentional apathy towards racism.
Sure it is.

If you are racist towards me, you are providing your own poison and you can hurt yourself without me having the lift a finger.
This really is mindless bable what you wrote here. Nice try at turning your own racism around 180 degrees.

You're right about the climate too, but it's weird. Most countries in tropical or subtropical climates do not yield advanced civilizations. European civilization actually is probably subtropical, it arises from the mediterranean and Nordic nonsense is just that, nonsense.
Well part of European civilization might be considered subtropical, but Northern/Western Europe such as Germany, France, England, etc... are temperate climates, alittle colder than subtropical.
As well you have to define what is your idea of advanced civilization.

If you hate Asia so much why are you there?

[Inst]

Sure it is.

This really is mindless bable what you wrote here. Nice try at turning your own racism around 180 degrees.

Well part of European civilization might be considered subtropical, but Northern/Western Europe such as Germany, France, England, etc... are temperate climates, alittle colder than subtropical.
As well you have to define what is your idea of advanced civilization.

If you hate Asia so much why are you there?

You are making unwarranted assumptions.

France, Germany, England, can be said to have been civilized by the Romans. The barbarians that overran the weakened empire adopted many of its methods.


This really is mindless bable what you wrote here. Nice try at turning your own racism around 180 degrees.
What you're writing is also mindless babble. Simply saying that it is so does not make it so, you have to connect the premises with the conclusion.

[yella_fella]

I lost my much longer post, here's a short summary:

The reason for all the warring was that the Chou dynasty had a particular political structure of suzerainty and "satellite" states. Western scholars long rejected the existence of "legendary" dynasties, but archeology has since verified at least the Shang dyansty. The shang staged a revolution against the Xia dyansty. The Xia was set up by the sage-king Yu, when for the first time he passed on rule to his son, creating a dynasty. Before that the legendary "sage-kings" would choose the most qualified. This was seen as the first degradation. With each successive dynasty, the Chinese imagination saw a decline or degradation, like entropy. The ancient Greeks also thought this as they suggested that they went from a Gold age to a bronze age to the iron age. so the greeks felt they were in a degraded state in contrast to their ancestors. Confucius also shared this, so his ethical philosophy was in a sense reactionary, attempting to reinvigorate the ethics and propriety of a bygone time (such as with the time of Duke chou the author of the I-Ching, the 8 trigrams are attributed to Fuxi). The best example of this is the "legendary" Kezi (Korean Kija) who is probably historical since two separate languages, cultures, and historical imaginations point to him, at the same time (ca. 1120 BCE). He was disgusted with the Chou revolution against the culturally and technologically superior Shang (the last Shang emperor was a corrupt tyrant, Zhouxin). Instead of pledging allegiance to the new upstarts, he chose to flee to Korea. Before he left, he was begged to write down his knowledge. These texts were later edited by Confucius to form the Five Classics. These texts would be lost to future generations had Confucius not edited them. Both Korean and Chinese histories mention Kija. This may explain why the first written record of the Koreans by the early Han (200 BCE) state, "That is why the ancients say, if you lose the rituals find them amongst the eastern barbarians." Actually, barbarians is a mistranslation, just eastern tribesman would be better. the mongols were considered barbarians (yeman ren), the koreans were named by a different chinese character. this early Han text describes how it was odd that the different Eastern tribes (located throughout present day Manchuria and the Korean peninsula) "practice the correct rituals on the correct days according the the correct calendar." One possible theory is that Shang culture was brought to Korea and continued to the time that the Han arrived to describe the culture. (Again history here is a technology of imperialism, since the Han had colonized parts of Korea, they then write a history of it, classify it, categorize it, define it, name it. "In the animal kingdom, the rule is, eat or be eaten; in the human kingdom, define or be defined." -Thomas Szasz, "The Second Skin")

So, the Chou royalty would "bequeath" lands throughout china, emanating out from the Chou state, to their relatives and allies (about 100) that remained relatively independent and arranged in a heirachic and suzerain order. After many centuries, you had a proliferation of separate states, all with the imagination that China was one. (This is in contrast to India, a society as ancient right next door, that had only two homegrown empires in its ridiculously long history, that of Ashoka's 262-232 BCE, and mellenia later that of the Mughal Emperor Akbar the Great 1556-1605 CE, and until the british empire didn't have the imagination of a, what today we would call a "nation-state"). These different states fought like made for centuries, utilizing genocidal tactics. Eventually the paranoid delusional Qin Xihuang (he heard voices whispering outside his bedroom when no one was allowed anywhere near him) unified the empire. (To commemorate his mother's death, he had thousands put to death)

Controlling history is a way of controlling a people. That's why burning all the previous literature happened so frequently throughout China's hisotry. Most recently with Mao. Think about simplified script. If you can only read simplified, reading the classics would be near impossible, esp. the classics, which is hard even if you know classical characters.

Soldier vs. scholar. In the chinese imagination of social stratification it goes: scholar, peasant, artisan, merchant. Merchants are at the bottom because they are seen as self-serving and greedy, the worst things according to "confucian" ethics. (Consider Mencius who claimed, "Either you wake up in the morning thinking about being virtuous or thinking about making profit." In other words you couldn't do both!!) Peasants are near the top because they produce, the way the earth produces. Scholars are at the top, because a scholar is one who is selfless and serves others. this character for scholar, came to mean soldier. So, in japan, they see any ethical references to "scholar" as applying to a samurai, not a confucian scholar. This led to an anomalous situation in east asia, where a nation of pirates and thieves came to be ruled by professional killers. the character for "empathy" (Mand. Xu) is unknown in Japan. This is odd because when his students asked confucius to sum up his teachings he answered "empathy-loyalty". today "loyalty" would be understood as sincerety, because the highest practice of loyalty is to be true to what is inside you. So, japan lacks empathy as a ethical practice (that is, being sensitive to what other's are feeling and experiencing). This may attribute to their long history of theft and murder, terrorizing their neighbors for nearly all of their history. (Consider the Japan display the the huge Metropolitian Museum in Central Park in NYC. Outside the Sackler Wing as it is called, is a plaque that states, "Not all of Japan's art, culture, and artifacts were stolen, some were legitimately traded for." Inside, a lot of the artifacts on display are Korean and Chinese. Remember that during the Hideyoshi Invasions of 1592-8, they kidnapped cermaics makers, painters, artists, and animals, giving rise to most of what today is thought of as "traditional" Japanese culture. In fact, the first cermaics factory was not opened until 1603, obviously by kidnapped Koreans. The japanese dog breeds also seem to look suspiciously like what remains of Korean dogs (the other dog species were wiped out by Japanese colonialsim, they made gloves out of them, and these dogs only exist in Korean paintings from the 18th C.) The invention of "traditional" Japanese culture was a modern invention arising from Imperialism. It was a strategy for the Japanese to somehow suggest that they were different (therefore superior) to their neighbors. So martial arts, and all that stuff actually are only a century old. (See Carol Gluck's "Japan's Modern Myths: Ideology in the Late Meiji Period." Princeton UP, 1985.)

[projectnavi]

wow, thanks to those long post. really interesting !

keep them coming ppl, until i can pick those courses in university !

project

[neko kenshi]

A similar question which I didn't think would need starting a new thread for:

I heard that karate origionally came from China, and then Japan adopted it. My question is, when did this happen, what did the Chinese call it, and is the Chinese version still around? Sorry if this is an obvious question or has been answered before, but I've just been curious about this for a while. Thanks for any answers you could give me.

[Ninjujinkaku]

Karate means china hand. It was brought by chinese pirates to okinawa in the medieval periods. The okinawans used it and kept it to thier island till the 1900s. Then funakoshi saw a business oppurtunity in okinawa brought karate(china hand) renamed it Karate(open hand because of the war and japanese racism towards china) packaged it for the japanese in a system called shotokan. Okinawan karate is much closer to chinese kung fu and many okinawans have been back to china to study, The founder of Goju ryu (miyagi) karate did this, he studied shaolin and pa kua from 1905 to 1927.
Check this page for the historys of all the major karate styles inlcudeing goju.
www.bris.ac.uk/depts/union/combatkarateclub/goju.html (http://www.bris.ac.uk/depts/union/combatkarateclub/goju.html)

Oh the chinese version is Kung Fu or classical wushu. Youll find northen/southern shaolin arts as well as taoist internal arts such as taiji/bagua/xing yi are still around and if you have a good teacher in your area i suggest you check them out.

[Akai Bushi]

Accually Karate means empty hand, but it orginate from China. Chinese monks who traveled to Okinawa taught the Okinawajin and they in turn made it their own per say.

[Ryan213]

U might want to try some Crane Kung Fu, as I believe it influenced Goju ryu.

Or - http://www.genbukan.org/cgi-bin/site.pl?koryu
thats pretty cool. Its Koryu karate , or "Old School China Hand" karate meaning china hand. koryu meaning old school

[Akai Bushi]

I never knew kara was a character for China. I always thought it meant sky or empty.
In addition I thought Chu, Kan, or Han were the characters typically used for China. Never heard of Chute, Kante, or Hante.
Probably the closest form of Karate to the orginal Chinese style might be Shorinji.

[Akai Bushi]

While Karate does mean empty hand.

The old name ment China Hand but is no longer used.

At one point it was just called TE or hand.

[Philippe]

Late reply, as I've been preoccupied with other things and haven't had a chance to drop by this forum for the last little while.

I never knew kara was a character for China. I always thought it meant sky or empty.
Written "唐手", it would translate to "China hand", where "唐" (kara, TŌ) is the character that refers to Tang dynasty China. Written "空手", it translates to "empty hand", with "空" (kara, KŪ and several other readings) being the character that means "empty" or "sky".

In addition I thought Chu, Kan, or Han were the characters typically used for China. Never heard of Chute, Kante, or Hante.
Let's see: chū is 中, from Chūgoku, the modern name for China, kan is 漢, for the Han dynasty. There are several others, for the other dynasties in Chinese history, but I can't think of one that's read "han" in Japanese. I think you ended up accidentally picking the romanisation of the Chinese as an alternate Japanese reading.

Probably the closest form of Karate to the orginal Chinese style might be Shorinji.
Well, considering that Shōrinji is the Japanese rendering of Shaolin temple...

[Akai Bushi]

Very insightful. I totally wasn't thinking of all the different characters for the Chinese dynasties. Just like China in English comes from the Chin dynasty.