Japan was to become a major exporter of copper and silver during the period. Renaissance Europeans were quite fond of Japan's immense richness in precious metals, mainly owing to Marco Polo's accounts of gilded temples and palaces, but also due to the relative abundance of surface ores characteristic of a volcanic country, before large-scale deep-mining became possible in Industrial times. "They never touch food with their fingers, but instead use two small sticks that they hold with three fingers." "They blow their noses in soft silky papers the size of a hand, which they never use twice, so that they throw them on the ground after usage, and they were delighted to see our people around them precipitate themselves to pick them up." "Their Scimitar -alike swords and daggers cut so well that they can cut a soft paper just by putting it on the edge and by blowing on it." ("Relations of Mme de St Tropez", October 1615, Bibliothèque Inguimbertine, Carpentras). Several decades later, when Hasekura Tsunenaga became the first Japanese official arriving in Europe, his presence, habits and cultural mannerisms gave rise to many picturesque descriptions circulating among the public: The first comprehensive and systematic report of a European about Japan is the Tratado em que se contêm muito sucinta e abreviadamente algumas contradições e diferenças de costumes entre a gente de Europa e esta província de Japão of Luís Fróis, in which he described Japanese life concerning the roles and duties of men and women, children, Japanese food, weapons, medicine, medical treatment, diseases, books, houses, gardens, horses, ships and cultural aspects of Japanese life like dances and music. Tomé Pires in Suma Oriental, bearing the earliest European record of the name "Japan". They do not often trade in China because it is far off and they have no junks, nor are they seafaring men. He is a heathen king, a vassal of the king of China. The island of Jampon, according to what all the Chinese say, is larger than that of the Léquios, and the king is more powerful and greater and is not given to trading, nor are his subjects. They cannot understand the meaning of written characters.
They show their feelings without any self-control. They eat with their fingers instead of with chopsticks such as we use. The culture shock was quite strong, especially due to the fact that Europeans were not able to understand the Japanese writing system nor accustomed to using chopsticks.
( March 2019) ( Learn how and when to remove this template message)įollowing contact with the Portuguese on Tanegashima in 1542, the Japanese were at first rather wary of the newly arrived foreigners. Please help to improve this section by introducing more precise citations. This section includes a list of references, related reading or external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks inline citations.
The Tokugawa issued a series of Sakoku policies that increasingly isolated Japan from the outside world and limited European trade to Dutch traders on the island of Dejima. The Nanban trade declined in the early Edo period with the rise of the Tokugawa Shogunate which feared the influence of Christianity in Japan, particularly the Roman Catholicism of the Portuguese. The resulting cultural exchange included the introduction of matchlock firearms, galleon-style shipbuilding, and Christianity to Japan. The Nanban trade as a form of European contact began with Portuguese explorers, missionaries, and merchants in the Sengoku period and established long-distance overseas trade routes with Japan. In response, Dazaifu ordered Kikaijima (貴駕島) to arrest the Nanban. For instance, according to the Nihongi ryaku (日本紀略), Dazaifu, the administrative center of Kyūshū, reported that the Nanban (southern barbarians) pirates, who were identified as Amami islanders by the Shōyūki (982–1032 for the extant portion), pillaged a wide area of Kyūshū in 997. “Southern barbarian”) is a Japanese word which had been used to designate people from Southern China, Ryukyu islands, Indian Ocean and Southeast Asia centuries prior to the arrival of the first Europeans. The Nanban trade ( 南蛮貿易, Nanban bōeki, "Southern barbarian trade") or Nanban trade period ( 南蛮貿易時代, Nanban bōeki jidai, "Southern barbarian trade period"), was a period in the history of Japan from the arrival of Europeans in 1543 to the first Sakoku Seclusion Edicts of isolationism in 1614.