Week 12 Blog

 By: Unknown

This week on Wednesday we started talking about how Europeans viewed the Japanese people. The second primary source shows that Christian missionaries saw the Japanese people as very respectful people. One of the missionaries stated that “Their conversation is so polite that they all seem to have been brought up in the palaces of great nobles; in fact, the compliments they pay each other are beyond description. They grumble but little about their neighbors and envy nobody.¹” This quote is important because it shows the vastly different lives the Japanese people lived. This different perspective could be traced back to previous rulers who made articles and laws that required people to be polite and courteous to all. Japanese rulers emphasized decorum. As such, when the missionaries met the Japanese people they saw the Japanese as very polite to the point that one of the missionaries even writes that they envied nobody. This demonstrates that it isn’t that they don’t envy other people but their decorum states that they cannot express emotions like those in public as it would be unsightly. However, this courteous behavior does not extend to foreigners as Japanese people view foreigners below them. The Europeans saw this as deceitful because they appear to be courteous to everyone; however, they will kill and go to war with anyone that does not meet their agenda. According to Joao Rodrigues on Japanese Craftiness, “And in particular, when they wish to kill a person by treachery (a stratagem often employed to avoid many deaths), they put on a great pretense by entertaining him with every sign of love and joy~~and then in the middle of it all, off comes his head.²” The Europeans do not trust the Japanese even though the Europeans admire the decorum displayed by the Japanese. The Europeans feel it is only a facade, and that if they were left unprotected it might get them six feet in the ground. 

Nonetheless, Japanese people are quite attentive to the Christian missionaries when they spread their faith as it states, “No men in the wide world like more than they to hear sermons on how to serve their Creator and save their souls.³” This missionary’s perspective on the Japanese people shows how some Europeans saw their conversions. During the time this was written, there were constant wars going on, and the Japanese people were in a time of uncertainty. As such, people might have turned to religion because the missionaries were offering ways to save their souls and serve their Creator. So it is reasonable to see how people might have turned towards Christianity. However, could it also be explained by the Japanese people finding Christianity a better solution than Buddhism as Buddhism needs constant mediation to reach Nirvana? Could the Japanese people believe heaven is their Nirvana? Or did the Japanese people really believe in the Christian faith or is this the missionary’s bias?

Bibliography

“Japan’s Christian Century”. In David John Lu. Japan: A Documentary History, 199-201. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1997.

1. “Japan’s Christian Century”. In David John Lu. Japan: A Documentary History, 199-201. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, (1997) 198.
2. “Japan’s Christian Century”. In David John Lu. Japan: A Documentary History, 199-201, 201.
3.  “Japan’s Christian Century”. In David John Lu. Japan: A Documentary History, 199-201,198.