Sidetrack to Japan: Intro

I want to explain about my views of Japanese culture before I get into talking about my review of 1Q84.

China is like Japan's older brother.  Not in a belittling sense, but more in terms of age in the written language.  Although China technically used its character writing system before Japan utilized it for Kanji, I don't want to give the impression that Chinese is more "authentic" than Japanese.  This youtube clip might have been how China and Japan first interacted with each other.

My impression of Japan prior to the industrial revolution was that it was constantly defining its national identity relative to China.  But once the Perry Expedition exposed Japan to the modern world, the country chose to model its national identity relative to the rest of the world.  Meanwhile China chose to cling more so onto its past before re-thinking its national identity when the Qing dynasty fell.
It may seem out of place to talk about Japan in a blog about Chinese literature, yet I believe comparing the two can provide an interesting vantage point when discussing China.

My "Sidetrack to Japan" series will attempt to complement the two country's literatures in order to show that beneath the stark differences, their identities can provide universal echoes of the human conscious.

Just throwing this out there, is there any Japanese "equivalent" to Lu Xun's Diary of a Madman?