An overview of humor and religion in East Asia is complicated by a number of factors. While the area is united by millennia of cultural exchange, exemplified by the spread of the Chinese writing system, it is also marked by sharp cultural and linguistic divides. East Asia has also been influenced by an Indian tradition, Buddhism, which both transformed and was transformed by the religions of the area. In addition, it is difficult to neatly separate religious traditions such as Buddhism, Confucianism, Daoism, and Shintō; though distinctions were made, there was a constant tendency to combine and blur traditions sometimes now thought of as distinct. What are today thought of as the major traditions have existed in complex relations with what have been variously styled as local, indigenous, or folk traditions.

Indigenous Concepts and Orientations

While...