I really enjoy my weekly translation classes... language is such a beautiful thing!
Learnt last evening that although the origin of kanji was from the Chinese language, subsequently some Japanese terms formed from kanji were adopted by the Chinese language. Many of these terms are used quite frequently, like “概念”，“抽象”and“政党”. But there are also a number of terms, as expected, that are under contention... cos there are differing arguments about their actual origin. For example, “民主” was present in ancient Chinese language, although the meaning then was quite different from its current usage. Historical records show that the Japanese language then used the term to convey the meaning of "democracy", while the Chinese language used a direct sound translation of "democracy" in the beginning, before later using “民主”. Thus there are still differing opinions on the origin of the current usage of the term--was it the Chinese, who first came up with the term per se, or was it the Japanese, who used it to represent its current meaning?

My take on it is, there'll always be differing views on history, but it's interesting how the usage of a similar "alphabet" system has brought about such an exchange in language and culture. And that exchange is still on-going...with words like “人气” and...haha, at least for the CD-buying friends around me, “初回盘”and “特典”. ^_^