Cross-cultural communication （70）　

70) Japan's reputation during the period of national isolation
In the autumn of 2016, I read the book “Japan 1852: The Perry Expedition and the Opening of Japan” by Charles Macfarlane, in Japanese translation published by Soshi-sha Bunko. As the title suggests, this book seems to have been used as a reference by Perry when he sailed to Japan in order to force the country to open its doors. It details everything from the geography, politics and economy of Japan at the time, to the customs, culture and way of life of the common people of Japan at the time. Incidentally, the author himself was a British scholar who had never visited Japan. Or rather, at the time, Japan was closed to the outside world, and only Christian missionaries and those involved in licensed trade were able to visit. The author wrote this book using books and newspaper articles written by Portuguese, Spanish and Dutch people from the 15th to the 19th century as reference materials. All of these reference materials are listed at the end of the book, and I was surprised to see the huge amount of materials on Japan from that period.

According to this book, Edo (Tokyo now) and Osaka at the time were sophisticated metropolises that rivaled the author's home of London. It also seems to be a glowing review of the Japanese people, saying that even the common people could read and write, and that not only men but also women had refined hobbies such as going to the theater and listening to music.

During the periods of Nobunaga and Hideyoshi, Portuguese and Spanish Catholic missionaries were given preferential treatment, but later, Catholicism was banned and Japanese believers were severely punished. It was the Dutch, who were not Catholic, who took advantage of this and increased their power. The Dutch did not seem to mind at all about having to step on the Christian images. However, according to one document, there were many Japanese officials who did not like the opportunistic attitude of the Dutch.

Only the Dutch were allowed to come and go to Dejima in Nagasaki, but the author of this book was English, so he shows a somewhat one-sided dislike of the Dutch of this period. This is to be expected, as Portugal and Spain were rivals in the early days of the Age of Exploration in the 15th and 16th centuries, but from the 17th century, England and the Netherlands were rivals. This is just my opinion, but there are no good English expressions for the Netherlands. For example, there is Go Dutch, which means that the Dutch are stingy, Dutch party (a stingy party where the cost is shared), Dutch wife (which now means a female sex doll, but originally it meant the local wives of Dutchmen who were posted to the Dutch East Indies in the 1700s), Dutch courage (a false show of courage when drunk), etc. There are probably more if you look for them, but the British seem to be quite vindictive.

So, what I learned from reading this book is that Japan's reputation was outstanding among the advanced countries of the time before the country opened its doors to the outside world, and as a result, various countries were trying to get a foothold in Japan by all means. However, the advanced countries that were targeting Japan were not a united front, but rather were competing with each other while belittling each other.

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