Chinese influence on Japan

It is obvious to anyone visiting Japan that China was and is a huge influence.  But just how huge?  I have never been to China (well, I have been to Hong Kong, but that is different) so I can not compare and contrast how Japan and China are similar and different.  Instead I have to look at what's around me and figure it out for myself.  One noticeable similarity is the kanji.  Hundreds of years ago Japan "borrowed" Chinese characters to use for the Japanese language.  Speaking Japanese and Chinese are completely different, but their written language is similar.  When I was here before I never heard any Japanese person refer to kanji as Chinese.  This time I have.  Just yesterday my supervisor said she wanted to show me how to spell my name in Chinese characters.  They thought about making me stamp in the characters, but instead chose to do in in Hiragana.  Hiragana is usually used when their is no kanji.  Many times I will see kanji and hiragana used at the same time.  For me, I think it will be easier to learn Japanese using hiragana, then trying to memorize kanji.  Another Chinese influence is the food.  There is definitely some food that is strictly known to be Japanese, sushi comes to mind.  However, many other dishes that are popular in Japan are strictly Chinese.  Ramen and dumplings are an example.  Japan and China have a love/hate relationship.  I have never heard a Japanese person say anything bad about China, in fact they like to travel there.  However, when I had a friend visit me that was living in China, she said people asked her why she would want to visit Japan.  On the other hand, I had a professor from China who said she  visited Japan while she was still living in China.  She didn't say anything bad about the Japanese.  Author P. Sean Bramble(a former JET!) describes the relationship like this, "Chinese influence on Japan is momentous, and is still undoubtedly greater than many Japanese might care to admit.  It's not just the enduring capacity of Chinese lettering (kanji), or which Japan is the only non-Chinese country to have continued with this system.  It's also felt in the cuisine, arts and sorrowful history shared by two countries.  Even today, in the technology-charged 21 century, there remains, at the same time, a strong sense of mutual admiration and simultaneous mistrust between the two countries, an unpleasant dynamic that may never be resolved.  The story goes that China feels it taught Japan everything it ever learned; Japan retorts that that was hundreds of years ago, and China hasn't learned anything new since.  That symbiosis, of the proud teacher and the impatient student makes itself felt in this corner of the world time and again."  My question is, in today's world who is the proud teacher and who is the impatient student?  The BBC describes modern Japan this way, "Japan is the world's second-biggest economy, achieving an economic miracle in the second half of the 2oth century that was the envy of the rest of the world."  Perhaps in today's world, China is a bit jealous?  Regardless, this love/hate relationship is probably not going away anytime soon.