A Bit Of History

A portrayal of a "good" Jesuit priest in the 
mini-series Shōgun. In reality, there weren't many "good" priests.

I've always told my students that I consider understanding the Japanese culture almost as important as understanding their language, and I meant it.

At the moment I'm reading a history of Japan called "A History of the Japanese People From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era" by Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi, published in 1912 or so.

You may or may not have an inkling about how the people of the West came to Japan, and you may recall that Japan pretty much shut down the country for over 200 years -- neither letting anyone in nor letting anyone out -- a period which became known as the Tokugawa Jidai, or Tokugawa Era.

Why they did so is actually an amazing story. And you should know about this period of Japan's history, because, a bit like North Korea today, they became so isolated as to create a unique experiment, the subjects of which were several million unwilling participants.

But it led in many ways to how they are today -- you owe the vastly different Japanese ways of thinking in large part to this period of enforced isolation, and you need to know the reasons why this isolation came about.

I'll have to ultra-simplify things a bit, but in a large part, it was due to the persistent machinations of the Portuguese and the Spanish, who simply would not let sleeping dogs lie in their attempts to convert Japan en masse to Christianity.

At first, welcoming the associated trade, the powers that were at the time -- various daimyōs, shōguns and other potentates, accepted these zealots wholeheartedly, building them churches, allowing whole populations to adopt Christianity, even becoming Christians themselves.

But the Portuguese and the Spanish's motivations were far more devious than the conversion of a few "savages." Under direct orders from their governments, they were to infiltrate Japan by first converting the masses, then seizing the country as their own possession.

I kid you not. This, they assiduously did for over a hundred years. Someone who put a spike in their wheel, however was someone with whom you might have a nodding acquaintance -- "That Guy" who was the hero in that epic TV series "Shōgun" (actually Richard Chamberlain).

This person was a real Englishman named Will Adams, who almost singlehandedly turned the Shōgun at the time, Tokugawa Ieyasu, against the Portuguese and the Spanish by simply revealing the true motives behind the conversion of the Japanese to Christianity.

It's a thrilling tale, but the end result was that Ieyasu's son, Hidetada, was none too happy about the Portuguese and the Spanish, who kept creeping back to Japan despite being thrown out, and devising pathetic plans to overthrow the Shōgunate -- plans almost too pathetic to list here -- and proceeded to subject the perpetrators and all their Japanese followers to the most hideous of deaths -- being boiled and roasted alive (slowly!) or being torn limb from limb -- things only a 16th-century warlord could dream up.

And then he sewed up the country. He allowed one tiny port where foreigners could come and trade, and they weren't even allowed to leave their little island to cross the bridge to the mainland. For hundreds of years. Even foreign ships that were accidentally shipwrecked on Japanese shores during this Great Silence were ripped to shreds, the occupants dying the most ghastly of deaths.

All because of . . . you guessed it: religion.

William Adams, like many Englishmen of his era, didn't have the slightest interest in religion -- he only wanted trade. He, of course, lived out his life in Japan in superb and princely fashion, accorded the highest of honors that could only be bestowed on Japanese nobles, and the Portuguese and the Spanish . . . well, we all know where they are today.

That's worth a couple of Hail Marys, wouldn't you say?