Japanization  Japanization is the process by which Japanese culture dominates, assimilates, or influences other cultures. According to "The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language", "Japanize" means "To make or become Japanese in form, idiom, style, or character". In the modern day, many countries and regions in East Asia particularly South Korea and Taiwan, have absorbed and incorporated Japanese popular culture such as music and video for many years after Japanese growth during the 1980s and 1990s. Many Japanese films, especially soap operas are popular in Taiwan, South Korea and China among the younger generations after the movies are translated to their local languages. Japanese electronic products and food are found throughout East Asia. In terms of World War II and military conquests, Japanization takes a negative meaning because of military conquests and forced introduction of Japanese culture by the government. During pre-imperial (pre-1868) period a peaceful diplomacy was practiced during which Japan did not expand much in territories beyond its own islands. After the Meiji Restoration in 1868, Japan began to follow the way of the western imperialism and expansionism. in 1879, Japan officially annexed the Ryūkyū Kingdom, which was a tributary kingdom of both the Qing Dynasty and the Empire of Japan. Though the Ryukyuan languages belong to the Japonic language family, the Japanese language is not intelligible to the monolingual speakers of the Ryukyuan languages. The Japanese government began to promote the language "standardization" program and took the Ryukyuan languages as dialects. In schools, "standard" Japanese was promoted, and there were portraits of the Japanese Emperor and Empress were introduced. Many high-ranking Japanese military officers went to inspect Okinawan schools to ensure that the Japanization was functioning well in the education system. This measure did not meet the expected success at the beginning, partly because many local children's share of their heavy family labor impedes their presence in schools, and partly because people of the old Okinawan leading class received a more Chinese-styled education and were not interested in learning "standard" Japanese. As measures of assimilation, the Japanese government also discouraged some local customs. At the beginning, these assimilation measures met stronger reluctance of local people. However, after China was defeated in the First Sino-Japanese War in 1895, people lost their confidence in China, and the reluctance against the Japanization, though it did not disappear, became weaker. Men and women began to adopt more Japanese-styled names.