Historically there are tons of influences.  I think the most significant is farming and agriculture.  The majority of domesticated farm animals evolved in the Middle East, and the rest further east.  The West really had no domesticated working animals other than the Llama.  So horses, sheep, goats, pigs, dogs, yaks -- All are 'imports'.  Another huge impact are grains and the development of agriculture.  While other societies also discovered agriculture, the combination of animal domestication and farming allowed for Eastern civilizations to develop faster.

I could go on and on with regard to anthropology, but rather than go into a chronological list of the influences, I find it is most important to focus just on this area of history.  It allowed for stable, larger populations.  Then eventually on to a complex system of occupational specialties - enabling many to explore other technologies such as writing - Which also originated in the East.

The West may have become very innovative in the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries, but it would never have been possible if not for the East, thousands of years before.

great topic..you just started a 45 minute conversation in my house that was REALLY enlightening (i live with a finance major whos done tons of studying on foreign policy) and his take is that it would be REALLY hard to see something like this because America was founded as a melting pot and remains that way as opposed to going into a place like Japan where you can litterally SEE how we have influenced and taken over because it was all japanese before and america has always been mutt like.

i am really apt to agree with him. neither of us are saying that it hasnt happened, but if you want to talk about a culture influencing us more you should look at mexico because they WERE america before america was america and we took over.

but what about easternization that occured during the 20th century and after?

and especially easternization that was mainly from south west asia and northern africa, i.e the middle east.

 i was always interested in this topic and will appreciate it if someone will share their thoughts on this?

- in music:

- yoga, tai chi, meditation, ayurvedic medicine, acupuncture are all commonly used.

-  India has influenced a number of people from the West. Philsophers such as Schopenhauer, poets like Walt Whitman, linguists and scholars like Maxmuller and William Jones as well as musicians such as George Harrison of the Beatles was influenced by Indian mysticism and philosphy. Not only was Harrison influenced by t he East but he played an active part in helping the common people of the east.

- George Harrison used a number of musical instruments in his song including the Indian musical instrument of the sitar, which he learnt from Ravi Shankar (a notable gay rights supporter)

 - travel and trade along the silk road bought along lots of texts and ,ind practices

- Mindfulness is an important concept in Clinical Psychology today and was influenced by Siddharta Gautama(Buddha)'s concept of managing mental suffering through mindfulness awareness tachniques.

- A lot of words that are commonly used today have eastern origin such as guru, avatar, mantra etc.

-Our concepts of space and time have been influenced by Eastern philosophy

- I would say there have been a lot of eastern influence on Western art, particularly modern art.

- Food. A lot of the food we eat today has been influenced by the East.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E01EEDF123EF930A15757C0A961958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all

 Eastern influence through celebrities

http://martinchemnitzpress.blogspot.com/2007/11/eastern-influence-through-celebrities.html

personally i think both the east and west have influenced each other but the dichotomy of east vs. west is a false one.

- Eve Ensler also took inspiration for the Vagina monologues from Eastern influences.

Here's an interesting perspective, though from a heterosexual context. Interesting nonetheless.

http://www.randomhouse.com/features/ensler/vm/excerpt.html

Nonetheless, I didn't hear words that were accurate, much less prideful. For example, I never once heard the word clitoris. It would be years before I learned that females possessed the only organ in the human body with no function other than to feel pleasure. (If such an organ were unique to the male body, can you imagine how much we would hear about it-and what it would be used to justify?) Thus, whether I was learning to talk, to spell, or to take care of my own body; I was told the name of each of its amazing parts except in one unmentionable area. This left me unprotected against the shaming words and dirty jokes of the school yard and, later, against the popular belief that men, whether as lovers or physicians, knew more about women's bodies than women did.

I first glimpsed the spirit of self-knowledge and freedom that you will find in these pages when I lived in India for a couple of years after college. In Hindu temples and shrines I saw the lingam, an abstract male genital symbol, but I also saw the yoni, a female genital symbol, for the first time: a flowerlike shape, triangle, or double-pointed oval. I was told that thousands of years ago, this symbol had been worshiped as more powerful than its male counterpart, a belief that carried over into Tantrism, whose central tenet is man's inability to reach spiritual fulfillment except through sexual and emotional union with woman's superior spiritual energy. It was a belief so deep and wide that even some of the woman-excluding, monotheistic religions that came later retained it in their traditions, although such beliefs were (and still are) marginalized or denied as heresies by mainstream religious leaders.

For example: Gnostic Christians worshiped Sophia as the female Holy Spirit and considered Mary Magdalene the wisest of Christ's disciples; Tantric Buddhism still teaches that Buddhahood resides in the vulva; the Sufi mystics of Islam believe that fana, or rapture, can be reached only through Fravahi, the female spirit; the Shekina of Jewish mysticism is a version of Shakti, the female soul of God; and even the Catholic church included forms of Mary worship that focused more on the Mother than on the Son. In many countries of Asia, Africa, and other parts of the world where gods are still depicted in female as well as in male forms, altars feature the Jewel in the Lotus and other representations of the Lingam-in-the-yoni. In India, the Hindu goddesses Durga and Kali are embodiments of the yoni powers of birth and death, creation and destruction.

I came across these images and I would believe this sort of art as well as the Kama sutra may have influenced western ideas of female sexuality and sexual orientation. A number of statues can be found near the Khajuraho temple which depict same sex love.

lets see krumping is of eastern influence..Lil C and Tight eyes were influenced by the homie Kunta back in Timbuktu lol j/k..pizza hut, dominoes, herbal tea are some other obvious ones..the Volkswagen, Pontiac g6, Honda, Toyota, Mercedes etc ..those ugly plastic sandals they sell at walmart...Louis Vuitton, Dolce and Gabbana, Versace, Gucci, Chanel, Prada, Armani, and Dior...Shakespeare...Christ...The Pope...Passover...Nude Beach/Nudist...Wigs..Wine..Voltaire..Rousseau..Lennon and Yoko Ono..and my favorite Che Guevara.

so I take it that east here means 'europe and asia' and west means the US? or does west mean the US and Europe while 'east' means asia, africa and oceania? where does latin america fit in all this? what about australia and new zealand?

 anyway, I suppose wherever there are immigrants, and wherever new technology facilitates the comm. and dispersal of ideas, some sort of penetration is inevitable. One only has to look as far as chinatown, the propagation of 'eastern' (whatever that means) brand names, products, and art; and the incorporation of 'eastern' themes in mainstream media (daft punk and their manga drawings, the harajuku girls, new age etc) to see some sort of influence. But I can't comment on the extent of this cultural exchange in human behavior though, that sort of thing could probably fill volumes :) and let's not forget that gunpowder was discovered in china, algebra was developed in the middle east, our numerals are considered as indian-arabic, english stemmed from an indo european proto language etc.

_____________________________________________

I'll google your yahoo if youtube myspace