Japanese Historian Describes First Contact With Europeans 16th cent. "Teppo-ki" // Primary Source

[Lance]

Couple short videos  about early/first contact from different perspectives

 

 

 

Regards,

Lance

[Bugyotsuji]

Watched the first one, thanks!

One down, one to go...

[b.hennick]

Thanks Lance! I learned many things. I'm not sure that all he said was true...

[Steve Waszak]

Thanks for posting these, Lance.  I can't help but wonder, though, whether inferences were made after observing the few and then applying that "knowledge" to the whole.  Quite a few generalities here.  Then, too, if the point made at the end of the second video regarding the ambiguous nature of Japanese language and communication is to be taken as true/accurate, how can the European account be confident of its understanding of the Japanese?  After all, a use of language that prizes ambiguity and indirectness would seem likely to give rise to misunderstandings. 

 

Still, these presentations of first contact and early interaction of cultures so alien to one another are always fascinating.  I recommend the various Michael Cooper publications, such as This Island of Japan: Joao Rodrigues' Account of 16th-Century Japan, and They Came to Japan: An Anthology of European Reports on Japan, 1543-1640.  So often, we get our "knowledge" of early Japan from publications that date to centuries after the period they're focused on.  But how does such passage of time and evolution of culture  distort the veracity of what is reported?  First-hand reports, though, while obviously not immune to biases and misapprehensions, offer at least the impressions of those who were there at the time, and perhaps a somewhat more accurate account of the period and place in question.  They are really intriguing reading, if first/early-contact narratives are of interest. 

[Lance]

I'm sure there was some over generalization (and exaggeration too) What Ive always found to be really interesting in these accounts is their impressions of us, we (westerners) must have been as weird to them as they to us, or maybe we were even stranger to them, at least we were in contact with China beforehand.

Regards,

Lance