Igor’s Reviews > The First European Description of Japan, 1585 > Status Update

"The Japanese have a far greater variety of personal names (over a million) than Europeans and Americans, whose fi rst names until recently were derived largely from a select group of biblical fi gures and saints."

"Women in Europe greatly prize and do everything possible to have blond hair; women in Japan abhor it and do all they can to make their hair black.

Europeans as far back as the Romans apparently believed that “blondes have more fun,” presumably because the hair color is reminiscent of men’s other preoc-cupation: gold."

"The equation, black = mourning has not always held true in the West.

Aristocratic women in Roman antiquity wore white for mourning, as did European queens during the Middle Ages and the early modern period."

I did not know that.

Extremelly interesting critical book. Not only the translation, but comments. Well done.

"Between 1549 and 1585, a relatively small number of Jesuit missionaries, 6 beginning with Francis Xavier, used this window of opportunity to establish some 200 churches with upwards of 150,000 Japanese converts, princi-pally on the southern-most island of Kyûshû."