Chinese characters and Chinese books were transported to Japan through Korean peninsula. Korean reprinted Dongpo’s poems and essays according to Chinese edition, and these Korean printed books were transported to Japan through commercial trade and war plunder etc. from 16th century, which were very helpful for Japan to learn from Chinese traditional culture, and these Korean books also influenced Japanese books’ printing. We can see there’re mainly two tyles of Korean books of Dongpo’s poems and essays, by the writer’s book survey in Iwase Bunko Library, University of Tokyo Library System and National Diet Library,Japan: the first style is Dongpo’s personal book of poems and essays, and the second style is anthology of famous literati’s anthology in Tang and Song Dynasty, which include some of Dongpo’s poems and essays. In addition, the main part of these books are official block-printing one， which tells us that Korean were valued and accepted Dongpo’s poems and essays from government to ordinary people. Dongpo’s lifetime, including where he stayed, such as Hangzhou, Huangzhou, Huizhou and Danzhou’s customs were knew by overseas’ people through these books. The Korean books have high material value, and the headnotes, interlinear notes, review, preface and postscript are all very valuable for bibliographic study, literature study, and history study.

In the oldest historical book of Japan, Kojiki, we can see some records about Japanese acceptance of Chinese books from Korean Peninsula, such as The Analects of Confucius etc. During this cultural interaction history, Dongpo’s poems and essays printed in China were transported to Korean Peninsula firstly, then to Japan. Dongpo’s books of poems and essays had become popular, that’s why we can see lots of Dongpo’s books reprinted by Korean Peninsula, which were transported to Japan by commercial trade or war plunder later, sometimes by giving as gifts and so on, just as mentioned above. On the other hand, We can see some records about Korean printed ancient Chinese books in Shulin Qinghua wrote by Ye Dehui in Qing Dynasty. Ye honored these ancient Chinese books printed in Korean and took it as good edition.

We can find many cases about ancient Chinese books printed in Korean transported to Japan in historical books, and can find many such books exist until today in Japan, but how they are transported to Japan exactly? This paper tries to answer this problem according to the book survey in many libraries in Japan, and takes Kim Sekyun김세균(金世鈞,1465-1539)’s collections in Iwase Bunko Library as example to analyst the historical records in China, Korean and Japan. In addition, this paper records edition information about Dongpo’s books of poems and essays printed in Korean Peninsula, but now collected in Japan, and these books were all read by writer during her book survey.

As a distinguished philosopher and anthropologist, Claude Lévi-Strauss's structuralism and its derivative theories have had a significant impact on human society in the 20th century and beyond, bridging the theoretical domains of the natural sciences and the humanities. This paper focuses on Lévi-Strauss's analysis of Japanese culture, employing his structuralist methodology and anthropological perspectives. It investigates two key dimensions: the convergence of signs and the divisionnisme. Through these perspectives, the paper reconstructs the cultural motifs and structural characteristics of Japan as outlined by Lévi-Strauss, revealing his dynamic and multifaceted framework for comparing Eastern and Western cultures and the approach to synchronic understanding. Furthermore, the paper explores the methodological insights and modern implications that Strauss's research on Japan offers for contemporary scholarship.

The discussion will be organized around four principal themes. First, the interplay between tradition and modernity, as framed by art history. Second, the relationship between nodes and frameworks in the study of mythology. Third, the centripetal forces arising from the interaction between East and West, each resisting yet generating mutual attraction. Fourth, the presentation modes of structuralism and the novel understanding of synchronisme. Lévi-Strauss characterizes Japanese culture as "the hidden other side of the moon," reflecting his expectation of symmetry, resonance, and mutual understanding amid the cultural divergences between East and West, with the aim of transcending cultural dualism and seeking greater integration across spatial and historical dimensions.

However, it is evident that some of Strauss’s discussions on the characteristics of Japanese culture still bear traces of exotic cultural imagination, and his treatment of the holistic connections within Asian cultural history is somewhat insufficient. Nevertheless, Lévi-Strauss’s work continues to represent a seminal Western interpretation of Eastern culture, providing valuable insights into cross-cultural dialogue within the context of the Anthropocene and offering profound reflections on the relationship between humanity and nature.

The “transcendence of modernity” is a highly controversial but tense proposition in Japan's reflection on modernity. Japanese intellectuals have adopted the perspective of the opposition between the “East” and the “West” in an attempt to transcend the “modern” imposed on Japan (East Asia) by Europe and the United States in the modern era. This “East-West dichotomy” focuses on the specificity of Japan and attempts to produce localized knowledge. However, the theory of the “modern supra-grammatism” ignores the idea that “modernity is ourselves”, that is, in the reality of global capitalism, “local knowledge” is always a product of globalization. The Modernization of East Asian Countries The course of modernization in East Asian countries was accompanied by wars and colonization, which made the East Asian countries have complicated emotions towards “modernity”. On the one hand, achieving “modernity” is an inevitable requirement for “preserving the nation and the race”; on the other hand, achieving “modernity” is at the expense of “local specificity”. This paper argues that the dichotomy between “local” and “world” and the attempt to return to “nationalism” is inevitably unattainable; it is necessary to go beyond such a perspective and deal with “local” and “world” in a communitarian way. The relationship between “place” and “world” must be addressed in a communitarian manner, beyond such a perspective.

Translated with DeepL.com (free version)

During the more than six hundred years from the Goryeo Dynasty to the end of the Joseon Dynasty, many Korean literati in the envoys to China and Japan wrote an abundant of travel records. These materials are increasingly valued by scholars in South Korea, Japan, and China. Among them, the parting poems and essays written by Korean literati for their envoy relatives and friends on their travel to China or to Japan have received less attention. These literati wrote either based on their own East Asia travel experiences or based on their own imagination. Their creative motives, creative mentalities, and the features of the overseas countries they described presented the constructed images of China and Japan in three dimensions, and also reflected the complex political, economic, and cultural relationships among the three countries. Compared with the one-dimensional study of the East Asian travel poems and essays by Korean literati, the parting poems and essays on East Asian travels contain the dialogues and exchanges between the see-off literati and the literati being seen -off, presenting the similarities and differences in the images of China and Japan constructed by Korean literati more diversely. In addition, the parting poems and essays on East Asian travels also have certain reference values for the authenticity and textual research of the historical materials in“Chaotian Lu”and "Yanxing Lu" (Records of Travels to Beijing written by Korean Literati), and are also very helpful for deeply understanding the social conditions, ideological cultures of China, Japan, and the Korean Peninsula, and for the mutual learning of East Asian civilizations.

This article takes D.T.Suzuki’s elaboration on the "emptiness" of Zen Buddhism at the Eranos conference as an example to explore the ideological phenomenon of the westward dissemination of Zen Buddhism in the 20th century. The Eranos conference has been held annually in Ascona, Switzerland since 1933 and has played a crucial role in the cultural exchange between the East and the West. Currently, this aspect has received scant attention in the Chinese academic community. Suzuki delivered consecutive speeches at the conference in 1953 and 1954, presenting people with an inner path to extricate themselves from the spiritual predicament of modernity. In Suzuki's elaboration, the awakening of the spiritual world implies having no discriminatory mind towards all things. People can unveil the veil that dichotomous thinking casts over the real world by independence from language and non-objectification enabling the mind to directly apprehend "emptiness". At this juncture, people no longer draw a boundary between the self and nature, thereby dissolving the anxiety of constantly being threatened by the external world. He employed the "The Ten Oxherding Pictures" to suggest that the "emptiness" of Zen Buddhism unifies "non-being" and "non-nothingness", possessing the "possibility" of continuous renewal. The connotation of "emptiness" has been enriched in the ideological confrontation between the East and the West, inspiring European thinkers and artists to re-understand the world in their perplexity and also being beneficial for people nowadays to practice a positive meaning of life in their daily routines.