The introduction of continental or Chinese civilization into Japan was not a simple act of adoption. It was rather a work of selection and assimilation. As in the twentieth century, the Japanese is no blind copyist, he improves on what he borrows. Although the traveler from China entering Japan can see in a moment whence the Japanese have borrowed their civilization, and though he may believe the Japanese to be an inferior type to the Chinese, he will acknowledge that the Japanese have improved upon their borrowed elements fully as much as the French have improved upon those of Roman civilization.
Many reflecting foreigners in Japan have asked the question why the Japanese are so unlike the Chinese, and why their art, literature, laws, customs, dress, workmanship, all bear a stamp peculiar to themselves, though they received so much from them. The reason is to be found in the strength and persistence of the primal Japanese type of character, as influenced by nature, enabling it to resist serious alteration and radical change. The greatest conquests made by any of the imparted elements of continental civilization was that of Buddhism, which became within ten centuries the universally popular religion.
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From General Nelson A. Miles
Thrilling Stories of The Russian-Japanese War, 1904
