What continued was the shared religon between China and India, well India mostly, of Bhuddism. Bhuddism stayed and is still a common religious practice to this day. Another thing that continued is the Egyption and chinese farming technique for fertile farmland. They both developed, egypt and ancient china near rivers and they took advantage of that. We see that today in china, where they use the yangtze river, yellow river etc. Also mesopotamia, china, and egypt both developed a language, in which china and egypt used pictograms and mesopotamia developed the first written language; cunieform. Languages are a big part of society today. What changed was the overall shape and meaning of a civilization and society, mesopotamia, because they developed the division of labor in which people had to work. It's also to note that mesopotamia invented and created many great finding and inventions, ex the wheel and how to do metal work.
It was the "Meiji Restoration" that launched a period of rapid industrialization and Westernization in Japan during the 19th century, since this brought back traditional Japanese rule and led to modernization.
