[20][21] Classical literature written in Chinese characters nonetheless remains an important legacy of Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese cultures.

Ancient China was one of the cradles of civilization, with the emergent cultures that arose from the migration of Han settlers from the Yellow River generally regarded as the origin of the East Asian world.

According to Nishijima, this cultural sphere—which includes China, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam—shared the philosophy of Confucianism, the religion of Buddhism, and similar political and social structures stemming from a background of historical Classical Chinese scholars.

[27] The Chinese wénhuà quān (文化圈) dates to a 1941 translation for the German term Kulturkreis, ('culture circle, field'), which the Austrian ethnologists Fritz Graebner and Wilhelm Schmidt proposed.

The elites of East Asia were tied together through a common written language based on Chinese characters, much in the way that Latin had functioned in Europe.

Moreover, in East Asian countries such as Japan (御飯; gohan), Korea (밥; bap), and Vietnam (cơm; 𩚵 or 粓), the word for "cooked rice" can embody the meaning of food in general.

[40] Popular terms associated with East Asian cuisine include boba, kimchi, sushi, hot pot, tea, dim sum, ramen, as well as phở, sashimi, udon, and chả giò, among others.

Chinese words with these pronunciations were also borrowed extensively into the local vernaculars and today comprise over half their vocabularies.

It follows the search for the tao, a concept that is equivalent to a path or course and represents the cosmic force that creates the universe and all things.

Buddhist philosophy is guided by the teachings of the Buddha, which lead the individual to enlightenment through meditative practices, mindfulness, and reflection on their daily actions.

In this state the individual finds peace and tranquility above the oscillations of thoughts and emotions and is rid of the inherent suffering of the physical world.

[31] Confucianism is a humanistic[58] philosophy that believes that human beings are teachable, improvable, and perfectible through personal and communal endeavor, especially including self-cultivation and self-creation.

Confucianism focuses on the cultivation of virtue and maintenance of ethics, the most basic of which are:[59] Mid-Imperial Chinese philosophy is primarily defined by the development of neo-Confucianism.

[60] The Song dynasty philosopher Zhou Dunyi is seen as the first true "pioneer" of neo-Confucianism, using Taoist metaphysics as a framework for his ethical philosophy.

[62] Significant Christian communities are also found in mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, Singapore, Japan and Vietnam.

[citation needed] Islam is the most popular religion in Xinjiang and has significant communities in Ningxia in China: On the other hand, no specific religious affiliation may also be practiced as well, and are often the most cited in several aforementioned countries.

However, regardless of religious affiliations, most in the Sinosphere are entwined with traces of Buddhism, Confucianism and Taoism, or native religions and philosophies.

Core languages of the East Asian cultural sphere are predominantly Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese, and their respective variants.

They are often overlooked, since neither have their own country or heavily export their culture, but Zhuang has been written in Hanzi-inspired characters called Sawndip for over 1,000 years.

Hmong, while having supposedly lacked a writing system until modern history, is also suggested to have a similar percentage of Chinese loans to the core CJKV languages.

[81] As a result, Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese are also deemed Sino-Xenic languages that are highly influenced by ancient forms of Literary Chinese.

Mainland China, Malaysia, and Singapore use simplified characters, whereas Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau use Traditional Chinese.

Hanja is also studied and used in academia, newspapers, and law—areas where a lot of scholarly terms and Sino-Korean loanwords are used and necessary to distinguish between otherwise ambiguous homonyms.

In Vietnam (and North Korea), chữ Hán can be seen in temples, cemeteries, and monuments as well as serving as decorative motifs in art and design.

Japan often features hierarchically organized companies, and Japanese work environments place a high value on interpersonal relationships.

[86] A leader of a Japanese company is typically valued on their ability to maintain social harmony, and to unify or bring together their employees, rather than simply being the top decision maker.

[89] Koreans place value on maintaining a social harmonious environment that allows a worker's "kibun" (their mood or emotional feelings) to remain balanced.

[99] Hong Kong's successful postwar economy led to the territory's categorization as one of the Four Asian Tigers, developing strong textile and manufacturing industries.

Presently, higher growth in the region has been experienced by China and the Tiger Cub Economies of Southeast Asia, particularly Vietnam.

Mutual relations stem from hundreds to thousands of years of history between each state, originating from the advent of the spread of Classical Chinese writing, conquest, or from trade and cultural flow.