Uyghur-Chinese relations

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Just a little example. 

Nadira - Hasret Çektim نادىرە ھەسرەت چەكتىم

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=_XZbGmnOylM

Hasret Chektim 

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=fN7A7Yix4oE&feature=related 

Same song, one sung in Turkey one in Eastern Turkistan/Xinjian. 

There are similar and same instruments used, similar musical traditions and so on, claiming their is no resemblance is incorrect.
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There are bound to have some influence in virtually anything. Even Chinese Pi pa came from central Asia, but the crux of the issue here is whether the Uighur and Turkish similarities are greater than Sino-Japanese-Korean similarities, since most aspect of traditional Japanese and Korean culture has traits of Chinese influence as well. While many modern Chinese cultural elements has Japanese influence. You also seem to be comparing traditional culture, if that was the case, Japan and China would be even more similar. But modern Turkish culture is quite different from modern Uighur culture because the Uighurs aren't as modernized. 

 Language, religion, identity, culture etc are the factors which differentiate groups of human societies called nations, without them were all simply humans, therefore if were discussing ethnics or nations characteristics these are the important factors. Otherwise, were all pretty much the same and their is no point of further discussion..

The concept of modern nation is a European definition, a notion which even the Europeans themselves are slowly starting to abandon. Ancient East Asia did not follow any of that. Take the Koreans for example, despite the modern fuss about altaic origin by some ultranationalists today, ancient Koreans would feel ridiculous at such a categorization, if not outright offensive. Koreans of the 17th century felt far closer to the Chinese than to the Manchus or Mongols, when the Ming fell, the Koreans even started to call themselves "little Chinese civilization" and thought that they are the only ones who inherited Chinese culture.

Japanese also have Shintoism, Chinese have Taoism and being non-religous isn't a shared belief.

Religion can be so important that nations can be divided, like in Ireland. 

It can be one of the factor which influence a peoples culture or identity as it can have effect on how society does certain things.

Shinto only makes up 11% of the Japanese population. Most Japanese and Chinese are none-religious, followed by Buddhism as the major religion. 

You also need to have some grasp of the view of religion shared by East Asian countries, which is very different from the western ones(Islamic countries included). In the East, religion is not that important, at least to the central of focus in the west. A survey showed that for every second person religion has no importance at all in everyday life, for 38% it is a little bit important, and for only 12% it is either important or very important. 40% of the Japanese Christians indicated that religion is important or very important for them in everyday life, while for majorities of Buddhists and Shintoists religion has only a little importance in daily life. The same is true of China.

 Nor is religion exclusive, one could easily be both Buddhist and shinto or Buddhist and Daoist. And many people who follow regular buddhist and ancestral worship rituals in both China and Japan would consider themselves none-religious. So all surveys on religion in the western manner is problematic. The only differences between Chinese and Japanese religion is that the traditional folk gods are different, but we also need to realize that in different locations within China and Japan the gods that were worship is different from other native locations as well. In another word, the religious mentality in China and Japan is actually very similar. 

 So you can understand Japanese can you.

(I actually can understand Japanese because I studied it), and can you understand Uighur?
I can read lots of Japanese characters even before I learned the language. 

When you learn the language then you decide for yourself, there is a degree of mutual intellegibility between the two, if you knew either language you could get by in the other country, now I'm not saying they would be 100% fluent but would know enough to not be alienated and within a relatively short amount of time be more or less fluent after adjusting to the lexical differences.

You can say the same about Chinese, when before I studied Japanese, I was able to get around Japan fine too by reading the signs.

Atheism is not a shared religous tradition. 
Japanese and Chinese lack the fundamental basics which unite ethnic groups, language, religion and they don't identify or have sympathies as being distant relatives either. 
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No, Chinese and Japanese athiesm is a shared religious mentality while buddhism IS a shared tradition. In fact most Japanese buddhist schools like the Zen and Tiantai are based on Chinese schools rather than Indian ones.

Basically, "you" believe Chinese and Japanese are virtually the same, that's fine, nationhood can be subjective but if we look at what can be discussed objectively, like language, religion and so on they are not as close as you make out. 

Thats not what I believe at all. I am merely questioning the notion that Chinese, Koreans, and Japanese are not as close to each other as the Uighurs and the Turks.

Edited by dick - 03-Feb-2009 at 14:01