Asia is home to many countries and a variety of cultures. It includes China, Japan, North Korea, South Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, The Philippines and many others. Some countries here are made up of many islands. A group of islands is called an archipelago. Examples of archipelagos here are: Japan, Indonesia, and the Philippines. In fact, Indonesia and the Philippines each have thousands of islands.
The largest and most powerful country in this area is China. China is a very hard country to understand mainly because of the government. Technically, it is a communist country. A communist country means a small group controls everything and people have very few rights. There is a video below showing how China's government has treated student protestors.
China decided to open up their country and economy to a make more money. This is called a "free market" economy. Since doing this, China has become very, very rich. Trade between the U.S. and China has skyrocketed. However, we owe China a LOT of money because we buy more things (import) from them than we sell to them (export). China has started to allow a little more freedom but the citizens living there do not have the same rights as we do.
There are other countries in this region that do not give the people freedom or rights. Unfortunately, the people in these places have a rough life. North Korea is an example. The leader there has basically cut North Korea off from the rest of the world. People live in constant fear of the government and have zero rights. Myanmar (Burma) is another example. Myanmar controls the people with an armed military using fear and force. They do not have electricity or clean water all the time and the people live in small poor villages. Other examples are Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, and Thailand.
Japan, South Korea, Singapore, and Taiwan are countries that have good economies and are rich like China. They also have governments that are more like ours in the United States. These countries are considered our allies or good friends.
This area still depends on the summer monsoon rains for their crops; especially rice which needs a lot of moisture. People eat rice or noodles for every meal just like the ancient Chinese did. Today they often eat more seafood than us. They do not have as much land for cows to graze and it is cheaper to eat food from the rivers, seas, and oceans.
They like many of the same sports as we do; like soccer, basketball, baseball, and volleyball. However, football like we play is NOT popular in Asia. They also love sports like badminton, ping pong, and martial arts. The most practiced religion in this part of the world is Buddhism followed by Islam (Muslim). Ideas of Confucius and Daoism are still popular as well as other spiritual beliefs and honoring ancestors.
This area has a history of natural disasters. These are events in nature that cannot be stopped. Examples are earthquakes, volcanoes, tsunamis, and land/mudslides. If you are not sure what these are, use Google to help you with the chart.