When the Twain First Met: European Conceptions and Misconceptions of Japan, Sixteenth-Eighteenth Centuries

Extract

As Peter Gay has observed in his stimulating and standard work on the European Enlightenment: ‘Even the most genial Christian had to regard his religion as absolutely true (and therefore all others as radically false), and heathens as unwitting precursors, or unregenerate enemies, or miserable souls in need of light.’ This conviction was held by the great majority of Europeans for centuries, and not least by the Roman Catholic Portuguese and the Calvinist Dutch who were successively the main intermediaries between Japan and the Western World. Of course, there were always some exceptions, such as the Portuguese fidalgo in the Moluccas, c. 1544, who commented that in spite of racial and cultural gaps, differences, and prejudices, ‘still, as the proverb says, the whole earth is one, and all its peoples are basically alike.’ However, as a general rule, many, perhaps most, Europeans were either hostile or else indifferent to Asian cultures. The Italian Jesuit Visitor Valignano stated that this applied especially to the Portuguese ‘who often termed even the Chinese and the Japanese “Niggers”.’ He also noted on one occasion that the Portuguese merchants from Macao seldom or never ventured further inland than Nagasaki and the Kyushu ports. ‘And because of the great difference in language, manners, and customs, the Japanese think very little of them, and they still less of the Japanese.’ This was written in 1583, and was probably an exaggeration even then. By the end of the century, it was quite inapplicable.