Japan vs China

Hello, I have a few questions regarding Chinese writing (in traditional writing, not simplified writing) on Japanese tokens.
Are the two alphabets similar?
Do native Japanese actually read Chinese in traditional script?
Are these Chinese writings in Japan only about religion?
Are Shintoism and Taoism the same?

Chinese characters hanzi (漢字) are logographic symbols (not alphabets) that originated in China and are used to write several languages, including Japanese. In Japanese, they are called kanji (漢字), and they are used along with two syllabic scripts: hiragana (ひらがな) and katakana (カタカナ).

There are three main types of Chinese characters: traditional (繁體字), simplified (简体字), and seal script (篆書). Traditional characters are the oldest and most complex form of Chinese characters in common use, and they are still used in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau, and some overseas Chinese communities. Simplified characters are a newer and simpler form of Chinese characters that were created by the People's Republic of China in the 1950s to promote literacy and standardization. Seal script is an ancient form of Chinese characters that was used for official documents and seals in ancient China. It is now mainly used for artistic and decorative purposes.

Japanese uses all three types of Chinese characters, but in different ways. Kanji are mostly based on traditional characters, but some of them have been simplified or modified by the Japanese over time. For example, the character for "love" is 愛 in traditional Chinese and Japanese, but 爱 in simplified Chinese. The character for "dragon" is 龍 in traditional Chinese and Japanese, but 龙 in simplified Chinese. The character for "country" is 國 in traditional Chinese, but 国 in both simplified Chinese and Japanese.

Hiragana and katakana are two scripts that were derived from kanji by simplifying or modifying some of their components. Hiragana is used to write native Japanese words, grammatical particles, and verb endings. Katakana is used to write foreign words, onomatopoeia, and scientific terms. For example, the word "Japan" is written as 日本 (Nihon) in kanji, にほん (nihon) in hiragana, and ニホン (nihon) in katakana.

Seal script is rarely used in modern Japanese, but it can be seen on some seals, stamps, logos, and calligraphy works. 

The main difference between Chinese and Japanese in terms of writing is that Chinese only uses one script (either traditional or simplified), while Japanese uses three scripts (kanji, hiragana, and katakana). Another difference is that Chinese characters have only one pronunciation per character (although there may be regional variations), while kanji have multiple pronunciations depending on the context and origin of the word. For example, the character for "water" is 水 in both Chinese and Japanese, but it can be pronounced as shuǐ in Mandarin Chinese, sui in Cantonese Chinese, mizu or sui in native Japanese words.

No, Shintoism and Taoism are not the same. Shintoism is an ancient religion of Japan that began at least as long ago as 1000 B.C.E. It means “the way of the gods” and its believers hold that spiritual powers exist in the natural world. They believe that spirits called ‘kami’ live in natural places such as in animals, plants, stones, mountains, rivers, people, and even the dead.  On the other hand, Taoism (also known as Daoism) is a religious, philosophical, and ritual tradition that began in China and highlights living in harmony with the ‘Tao’ (also ‘Dao’) (literally ‘Way’). Tao is also a central idea in Taoism. Tao stands for the principle that is both the source and the design of development of all that exists.

And the “artistic” seal script is hard to decipher like on this tapestry in my living room 😜

I was given the translation

That's “cursive”, seals are these mofos

Idolenz

That's “cursive”

 

Is it like the running script of Song dynasty coins ?

Just to muddy the waters further. The Koreans also use these Chinese scripts and they call them “Hanja” and every Korean child (Well South Korean ones) are meant to learn Hanja at school. The language and scripts they use is called “Hangul” that is the one with the circles and straight lines etc. Koreans have spoken their native language for millenia, but this script was only synthesised in the 1400s by King Sejong the great (He appears on 10,000 won banknotes). Before then, Korean language was all in Hanja.

Hanja is the same as Kanji. This is because around 0AD, Chinese people spread their influence into Korea and influenced the states of Shilla and Palhae. Around 300 - 500AD these influences spread further to Japan, which had been lived on by Neolithic rice farmers called the Yayoi and before that the Jomon, who had the world's first pottery at 12,000BC. Around 300AD Koreans brought Buddhism and Rice growing skills to Southern Japan (the Yamato culture - responsible for the bell shaped tombs near Kyoto). They also likely brought Kanji and both Korean and Japanese cultures were directly influnced by the Chinese Han dynasty (about 200BC to 200AD).

All 3 cultures continued to interact up to the present.

In Korea, their country is known as Hanguk to them, Japan is Ilbon and China is Jungguk (It means land in the middle).

Frenchlover

Is it like the running script of Song dynasty coins ?

“Running”-script is a semi-cursive style and what's commonly called “grass”-script or rough/draft script is fully cursive one (as far as I understand it, it's like some kind of shorthand form of writing characters) and yes these show up on cash-like coins.

Frenchlover

Are Shintoism and Taoism the same?

No - Taoism is Chinese philosophy devised by Lao Tse.

Shintoism is a Japanese adaption based in the earlier pagan religions of Japan and you can get Shinto shrines separate from Buddhist ones. Cofucianism is more a way of life and  series of protocols.

The Japanese also have Shindo, a paganistic style religion similar to Korean Shamanism. They are similar and share many creatures like the 9 tailed fox. Both Shindo and Shamanism go back millenia and are still strong, although many Japanese reject Shindo and many Koreans are simply Christian or Buddhist and nothing else. 

Unlike Kanji, both Hiragana and Katakana are syllabaries, i.e. each character is a syllable, made up of either a consonant and a vowel (40 characters), a vowel (5 characters), or a consonant (just 1 such character, “n”, ん - Hiragana, ン - Katakana). Both Hiragana and Katakana contain 46 base characters. Plus, a couple obsolete characters that are no longer used in modern Japanese. 71 characters if you include the variations created by adding one of the 2 diacritic marks (゛and゜ ). The diacritics are used to modify the pronunciation of the syllable's consonant part. For example, か ("ka") → が ("ga").

Do Kanji, Hiragana and Katakana mix together in a text or when you write a text in one language then you don't use the others?

Yes, they get mixed all the time.

1. Certain Hiragana characters are used as particles together with Kanji for grammar purposes. For example, the の ("no") is similar to “of” or “'s” in English, i.e. used to show belonging. So, 日本の景色 (Nihon no keshiki) = views of Japan

2. Katakana is mostly used for foreign words/names, so no matter if you're writing in Kanji/Hiragana, you might need to mix in some Katakana. There are actually quite a few borrowed words in Japanese, perhaps as much as 10%, mostly from English.

Some places where Hiragana is used: subtitles, comic books, elementary school textbooks (for young children who have not learnt Kanji yet).