Japanese Literature discussion

Discussion on NF book Prisoners of Nambu .
Dutch sailors are lured onto shore and arrested in the closed Japan of the Edo period, but are eventually released because the Dutch are the only Western power that has relations with Japan.

Jack, Carola, and I already have the book. Others are more than welcome to join in.

I just started today with the introduction.
There is a Wikipedia article that has a (incomplete) list of Westerners who visited Japan before 1868:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_...

We had also discussed reading Titia: The First Western Woman in Japan but it is out of print, expensive and difficult to obtain. However, if you run into an inexpensive copy, you might want to read this. It would be printed in English or Dutch/Flemish. Donald Keene in a 2003 article for the Japan Times writes, “ Of his account the author says that it "is not a history, nor is it a novel or an official biography." Yet, he makes full use of all the available historical sources, and the book comes with genealogical tables, illustrations, maps, notes and a bibliography. At the same time, …, it is also something of a romance.

Rene Bersma, himself a distant relative of the unhappy lady, calls his work a "tribute," and so it is. Consequently, perhaps, emotional appeals sprinkle the pages and history scrunches over to accommodate feeling. If, however, one disregards the novelistic touches and concentrates on what actually happened, then one may enjoy an interesting reconstruction of one of the earliest encounters between West and East.”
See: https://www.japantimes.co.jp/culture/.... ( I think you can read a few articles free each month at jt.)

I read Engelbert Kaempfer's book, but didn't find it particularly interesting. I vaguely recall reading something by Philipp Franz von Siebold that was more interesting, but not what it was called.

But back to the book. I enjoyed the introduction with no complaints and found a few things in it I didn't know already. I was waiting for someone else to post here before continuing with it ^_^

As chapter three begins, I'm getting glimpses of things I want to know more about. The author is also frustrated by the loss of the Dutch log that would have provided so much more.

Perhaps these questions will be addressed a bit later, but I'm curious about:
What language did the Confucian advisor and the Dutch captain communicate in?
Did the Confucian advisor know this was a Dutch ship?

Bill wrote: "Perhaps these questions will be addressed a bit later, but I'm curious about:
What language did the Confucian advisor and the Dutch captain communicate in?
Did the Confucian advisor know this was a Dutch ship?"

They communicated in gestures. The Dutch didn't know Japanese, and the Japanese (aside from a special guild of translators) weren't allowed to learn Dutch. The Nambu incident was also early enough in the Dutch-Japanese international relations that Rangaku ("Dutch learning") wasn't very advanced yet. (Later on knowledge of Dutch would spread outside of exclusively translator guild circles, mostly among people who had a medical profession.)

If I remember correctly it was made clear in one of the earliest chapters that they probably knew/could suspect this was a Dutch ship, during the meeting in Edo? Correct me if I'm wrong!

You could be right. The author is vague on page 21 when he says "The ship was [...] Dutch", but doesn't say whether or not the Japanese knew the ship was Dutch.

It's possible they communicated in only gestures. I was thinking that since the captain of the Breskens had been in the east for some time before this mission, he might have picked up some Japanese or Chinese. And the Confucian scholar he communicated with might have known some Chinese as well. It's all a bit unclear.

I'll save my musings for later about whether the Japanese had good grounds to arrest some sailors they knew to be Dutch. There's a lot of book to read first!

I'm reading it in Dutch so I don't know if the page numbers match (or even if the chapters match), but chapter 2 (in my edition) describes how the arrest may have gone, and has a bunch of quotes from the Dutch report that suggests they used gestures to communicate :-)

As for grounds for the arrest - afaik the Dutch were already limited to Dejima in Nagasaki in 1641, two years before the incident. They weren't allowed to set foot outside Dejima, so they definitely also weren't allowed to land anywhere else with their ships. On the other hand, according to this book, the two ships Breskens and Castricom got orders to "behave like gentlemen whenever landing anywhere", to ignore further exploration of Hokkaido, but... no strict orders not to land elsewhere in Japan? Curious how they'll explain that discrepancy!

Honestly can't wait to continue reading :-) (Will start chapter 3 this weekend.)

I tend to agree with you that the Dutch were only allowed to go to Deshima, and not to land anywhere else in Japan. I'm sure this will be addressed later!

I had to check though - they only moved from Hirado to Dejima in 1641, so I wasn't sure if the strict house arrest already started then. Since the incident was relatively soon after the move, perhaps (probably) the fleet still thought they could do whatever they wanted and get away with it? Clearly Dutch ships venturing along the coast where they weren't wanted was becoming a problem, considering that Edo meeting......

I loved the suggestion that Japanese fishermen were more in awe of the sea and its gods than they were of the authorities, and that's why they had no problem interacting with the Dutch ships even though it was technically not allowed.

I got to the capture. It's clearly said when they were in the house away from shore they were communicating with gestures. But then after they're thoroughly tied up and unable to move, they were responding to Japanese questions with complete sentences!

I don't know what to think now.

You mean the reply to whether they wanted to see the 'emperor' (shogun)? Since that reply was from the Dutch report, I'm fairly sure it was written down that way to cover their own asses. No idea to what degree they even understood the question, it was mentioned earlier on that 'shogun' was interpreted as 'emperor' because the Portugese called the shogun 'imperador', so maybe they just heard 'shogun' and did the maths. Both accounts (Japanese and Dutch) of the incident are unreliable (which is half the fun!).

(For the record, I have no idea how direct of a translation the Dutch edition of the book is from the English. The author is a Dutch native and had a strong hand in the translation, too. So I hope the sentences I'm referring to match the English edition.)

They seem to match what I'm reading so far.

The start of chapter 4 addresses the language issue a bit. And chapter 3 mentions gesturing a lot again.

Yeah, it's become way more apparent that they've been communicating in gestures the whole time.

I started chapter 5 and the way it overlaps/touches on what happens in Silence now is impeccable. Reading these two books simultaneously was an accident but I couldn't have picked a better time.
(It's very interesting to read the comments from the Deshima diaries about Ferreira/Sawano Chuan, and also the intense and absolute dislike they had for the man.)

[edit] I found an English edition of the book and the chapters don't seem to match up (anymore?). Chapter 5 in my Dutch edition is chapter 3 in the English edition ("Incompatible Jailbirds"). I'll keep the English edition on hand for future posts in this topic.

I finished Nambu today. The exhaustive detail is a bit exhausting, but it goes a unique view into the attitudes the Japanese government of the time.

In the conclusion, the author wants to agree with other historians that Japan was no actually closed during the Edo period because of all it's interactions with foreign traders and governments. That seems a bit facetious to me, since for almost everyone enter or leaving the country carried a death sentence.

I am fascinated about historical threads mentioned briefly in the text. For example the introduction of firearms in 1542 by Portuguese merchants.
Another is Will Adams, the first mate of the Dutch ship Liefde in 1600 who became an advisor on European matters to Tokugawa Ieyasu.

Firearms were important during the 16th century, but were then banned after the Tokugawa cemented their power.

There's at least one good book on Will Adams. I have Samurai William . And as I'm sure you know, he was the lead character in Shogun.

Here is the link to the Wikipedia article on the history of the “Tanegashima (種子島), most often called in Japanese and sometimes in English hinawajū (火縄銃, "matchlock gun"), was a type of matchlock-configured arquebus firearm introduced to Japan through the Portuguese Empire in 1543.”

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taneg...

Maybe we can come back to Will Adams sometime.

Carola wrote: "I started chapter 5 and the way it overlaps/touches on what happens in Silence now is impeccable. Reading these two books simultaneously was an accident but I couldn't have picked a be..."

Giuseppe di Chiara (1602 – 24 August 1685) was an Italian Jesuit missionary active in 17th century Japan. Chiara was the historical basis for the lead character of Sebastião Rodrigues in the novel Silence by Shūsaku Endō. (Credit Wikipedia). He is referenced on pages 52 and 101-102 in the English version of Prisoners from Nambu: Reality and Make-Believe in 17th-Century Japanese Diplomacy

Jack wrote: "Giuseppe di Chiara (1602 – 24 August 1685) was an Italian Jesuit missionary active in 17th century Japan. Chiara was the historical basis for the lead character of Sebastião Rodrigues in the novel..."

Thank you! I didn't see Rodrigues' name mentioned in Prisoners and hadn't considered another missionary may have been the basis for him.

There are lots of briefly mentioned events in Prisoners that send me on tangents. I am a little over half way through now.

In chapter 6 it mentions that some of the shogun’s councilors were absent on 2 Dec to attend the “inauguration of the new emperor”.

There is an interesting historical context to this. Empress Meishō, the 109th monarch of Japan, had abdicated; and the succession (senso) was received by her brother. Empress Meishō, personal name: Okiko (Japanese: 興子), had reigned for 15 years and was the seventh of eight women to become empress regnant, Josei Tennō (女性天皇). Her mother was _Tokugawa_ Masako.

"Just because you're paranoid, doesn't mean they're not out to get you"

I learned a fair amount about Iemitsu from this book, and I have to think that his paranoia of Christianity and Europeans in general was reasonable. He is fair in his view that the Dutch and the Portuguese have the same religion, and that at some time in the near future they might ally against Japan. The interrogations he ordered and participated in were an attempt to determine if the Dutch could be trusted to not do so.

It's not mentioned in the book and Iemitsu didn't know about it, but things in Europe were moving in a direction he wouldn't like. At the beginning of the book (in 1639) Europe was in the last, nationalist phase of the thirty years' war and the Dutch and Portuguese were mortal enemies. By the end of the book (1650) the Peace of Westphalia had been signed bringing the worst of the violence of the Reformation to a close. Holland and Portugal could have improved relations at that point, and Iemitsu even has evidence that the Dutch assisted the Portuguese once recently. He was right to be wary.

Finished Prisoners from Nambu. It was an interesting NF read and left me with multiple things to follow up on. The book definitely added depth to my understanding of the Shogunate and the VOC (Dutch East India Company) at that time.

My thanks for the suggestion and opportunity to read this with friends.

I hope to read Titia: The First Western Woman in Japan next month.

r/Jack