Is it true that old school Japan was more accepting of foreign visitors?

I remember reading somewhere that older Japan (I guess maybe 19th century and back?) was a lot more receptive to immigrants and cultural exchange, including Christian missionaries and the English. But then things changed and the country became a lot more guarded and unwelcoming toward foreigners.

Does anybody know if this is true, and if so, were the bomb drops in WW2 the reason all this came to pass?

There may have been a period where they were more tolerant, but it was definitely not in the period leading up to WW2. They held very similar views to the Nazis when it came to race and racial purity, seeing themselves as superior to other Asian races and using that as justification to unify Asia.

rjsilverthorn posted...

There may have been a period where they were more tolerant, but it was definitely not in the period leading up to WW2. They held very similar views to the Nazis when it came to race and racial purity, seeing themselves as superior to other Asian races and using that as justification to unify Asia.

Yeah that makes sense. So the bomb drops werent the catalyst for the change, but we at least know the change was in effect by that point.

XenobladeX posted...

remember reading somewhere that older Japan (I guess maybe 19th century and back?) was a lot more receptive to immigrants and cultural exchange,

That's completely untrue. Up until the US forced Japan to open its borders at gunpoint -- literally bring warships into the area -- the country was completely isolationist in the 19th century. And, even after that, Japan wasn't so much "receptive" as it was compelled to be more open.

Japan was likely at its most open state during the reconstruction following WW2, although permanent immigration in Japan -- afaik -- was always difficult, especially for non-Asians.

Culturally, prior to the US forcing trade in the mid-19th century, Japan was largely closed off to outside cultures. There was some adoption but the biggest shift came when the US helped Japan rebuild after WW2. The nukes technically weren't a major factor in that since it was just one way the nation was damaged.

In general, keep in mind that WW2 was a massive gamechanger across most of the world, since it disrupted infrastructures and economies throughout Europe and Asia. That gave the US a tremendous advantage... which we squandered thanks to leftist policies in the 1960s and 1970s. Among other things, those policies accelerated outsourcing and automation. And by the 1980s, Japan looked like it was going to be in a stronger position than the US... which didn't quite happen, although it was the world's second-largest economy for a long time.

There was a period of time where the Japanese government was desperate to make inroads with the world colonial powers after ending isolationism.

This was the correct decision as it paid off big time for them.

Japan's isolationism started around 1600 or so. Most of the modern anti-foreign sentiment stems from the period of closed borders from 1600 to 1850 (give or take a few years).

Before that they were much more open to interaction with China, at the very least. Though their relationship with China was never overly strong, and their relationship with Korea was always fairly antagonistic (though it's entirely possible that most modern Japanese ultimately trace their genetic roots back to Korea in the first place, though good luck getting them to admit that).

The Japanese mostly turned isolationist because most of the outsiders they tried to deal with were assholes who tried to screw them over one way or another. The Tokugawa closed the borders to foreigners around 1600 mainly to keep out the Catholics (and specifically the Jesuits).

Japan started having problems after the unification when the emperor forbid any infighting among the samurai. They got bored and wanted to still fight, so they went after other countries. And they justified that since they weren't Japanese, Bushido didn't apply to them so they could do any dirty shit they wanted.

I sincerely doubt that samurai wanted to fight each other because "they were bored."

Not calling you a bullshitter that's just a very bizarre justification.

After the Convention of Kanagawa in 1854 Japan imported a lot of foreign knowledge workers (industrialists, military strategists, etc) and it was as cosmopolitan as any other major country. Obviously some people weren't big fans ("expel the barbarians!" was a popular isolationist slogan) and they gained a lot of influence leading up to WWII.

VioletZer0 posted...

I sincerely doubt that samurai wanted to fight each other because "they were bored."

Not calling you a bullshitter that's just a very bizarre justification.

I heard they did on history channel. Warlords would just have skirmishes with each other without intention to gain or lose anything. Individual warriors would challenge people on opposing side to duels before the battle started. One warlord even gave aid to his landlocked opponent because he believed battles should be won with swords and spears not salt and rice.

Maybe that's when they weren't all otaku weirdos

JOExHIGASHI posted...

I heard they did on history channel. Warlords would just have skirmishes with each other without intention to gain or lose anything. Individual warriors would challenge people on opposing side to duels before the battle started. One warlord even gave aid to his landlocked opponent because he believed battles should be won with swords and spears not salt and rice.

Sounds like Vegeta's mentality

JOExHIGASHI posted...

I heard they did on history channel.

There's your problem.

Japan was fairly friendly to Christian missionaries until 1587, when Toyotomi Hideyoshi decided to ban them. Christians were persecuted during the Shogunate centuries.

ZeldaMutant posted...

Japan was fairly friendly to Christian missionaries until 1587, when Toyotomi Hideyoshi decided to ban them. Christians were persecuted during the Shogunate centuries.

That was mainly because Oda Nobunaga was friendly to Christians so they'd sell him guns.

Being friendly with Christians and being antagonistic towards the Buddhist power base in Japan is a large part of what got him labeled the "Demon King" and led to him being slandered for ages.

Christians were later persecuted because they were seen as a potential threat to the Shogun's rule - when you're trying to unify your nation that has been at war with itself for hundreds of years, the last thing you want is a separate faction who owe their loyalty to God and the Pope ahead of you.

Thanks for the replies guys. I find historical stuff like this interesting. Especially when it comes to Japan.

No, definitely not.

Japan really wasn't a unified national entity until the 1600s; before that, aside from a few brief eras of relative peace, it was mostly a set of fiefdoms ruled by individual warlords. In that era, relations with foreign powers were all over the map, but mostly not great (aided by Japan's relative isolation thanks to being separated from other countries by the Sea of Japan and the Pacific Ocean).

Japan's first real, sustained contact with the west was via Portugal, and they were one of the few western countries with which Japan had mostly positive relations. The Portuguese were allowed to trade within Japan (with Japan's first blackpowder weapons coming via Portugal in the 1500s), but they also brought with them Christian missionaries (chiefly Catholic Jesuits), which Japan really didn't know what to do with at first. Christianity started to spread across Japan, which caused friction with Shinto and Buddhist religious groups that sometimes involved violence, until Toyotomi Hideyoshi ultimately made the decision to ban missionaries from the country, believing that they were attempting to bring Japan under the influence of a foreign power (specifically, the church - he was not completely incorrect in this assertion). Missionaries were expelled from the country, if not outright killed, and Japanese converts were forced to renounce their faith or risk torture and death. Small Christian communities hid themselves as far away from Edo as they could, in western Kyushu or northern Tohoku, and in some cases persevered for centuries, but Christianity largely died out in Japan in the early 17th century.

This policy was largely kept in place by Toyotomi's successor, Tokugawa Ieyasu, the first shogun of the Tokugawa shogunate and arguably the first "true" ruler of a unified Japan as we would understand it today. Tokugawa was quite reactionary and several of his policies reflected this; under his rule, women's rights were rolled back (feudal Japan was actually remarkably egalitarian, as far as women's rights were concerned), laws were tightened around various forms of "indecency", and, most notably, Japan's borders started to close. Eventually, a few decades later, under Ieyasu's grandson, Tokugawa Iemitsu, Japan implemented the policy of "Sankoku" ("Locked Country"). Largely, this meant that no foreigners were allowed in Japan and no Japanese were permitted to leave. A few exceptions were made for trade at specific ports (mostly Nagasaki) for particularly favoured countries, but it was almost impossible to be a foreigner in Japan in this era.

That ended in 1853 when the US, then in full Manifest Destiny mode, sent Commodore Perry and a fleet of gunboats to Japan with orders to secure a trading agreement with Japan, by force if need be. Perry's visit could not have come at a worse time for the shogunate, as the ruling shogun - Tokugawa Ieyoshi - was in poor health and facing political dissatisfaction. Perry forced his way into Edo harbour and issued his demands, before departing for other parts of East Asia (he eventually visited Taiwan, which he recommended the US seize and declare sovereignty over, to use as a base for their East Asian interests); Ieyoshi died shortly thereafter and his death is generally seen as the beginning of the end for the shogunate; within a couple of decades, the Emperor (who had largely been a figurehead since the shogunate was established) had his power restored and disbanded both the shogunate and the samurai as a ruling caste. The Americans, in line with Perry's demands, negotiated at gunpoint a trade agreement that forced open Japan's borders and thus birthed the era of Imperial Japan.

The subsequent era really wasn't a great time to be a foreigner either, as most were viewed as invaders who defied local customs. Before the samurai were abolished, some were killed for failing to show proper respect to passing samurai, which did cause the occasional diplomatic spat. That takes us into the 1900s and the modern era, so you probably know the history from there.

Zareth posted...

Japan started having problems after the unification when the emperor forbid any infighting among the samurai. They got bored and wanted to still fight, so they went after other countries. And they justified that since they weren't Japanese, Bushido didn't apply to them so they could do any dirty shit they wanted.

This isn't true. At all, really.

First of all, the samurai weren't "the military"; they were the nobility. Similar to Europe, some could be warriors (analogous to European knights), but it was just as likely that a samurai had never actually used a weapon at all, because they were a court functionary mostly concerned with administration. Moreover, by the time of the Edo period, Japan's military included the use of non-samurai (i.e. peasants) who, in many cases, were actually more effective than the samurai in combat.

Secondly, the idea of "bushido" being some universal samurai code is also not true to history; that was Japanese propaganda, published during the era of Imperial Japan as a way to unite the Japanese people under a largely-fictionalized ideal of their ancestors. While some individual samurai clans did have "codes of honour", there was no universal standard. None of them treated foreigners any different than locals (the only real distinction was "samurai" versus "non-samurai").

Third, the emperor didn't forbid anything during the post-unification years, because all real political power was held by the shogun and the imperial family were largely forbidden from being involved in political affairs.

Fourth, the wars Japan waged following unification weren't to alleviate boredom (which is a hell of a statement just on the surface of it); they were largely to help recoup debts incurred by various samurai clans during the Sengoku Jidai (the "warring states period") that preceded unification. For instance, the Satsuma clan was granted permission to make the then-independent Ryukyu Kingdom a protectorate and collect tribute from them. Toyotomi Hideyoshi did launch two invasions of Korea to help secure his claim to rulership of Japan, but that's about as close to true as this claim gets.

Just as an extra note on the general medieval Japan experience for foreigners: skilled people and merchants were somewhat welcome because they had stuff to offer that gave various warlords advantages (guns being a big one) but if you were just some mook that crashed onto the coast there was good chance you'd get arrested and murdered. Foreigners were largely confined to specific port cities and preferably (for the shogunate) had as little contact with normal people as possible. Despite being the first to reach Japan and having excellent technology the Portuguese eventually got kicked out of the country because they wouldn't shut the hell up about Jesus, while the Dutch and English were fine with 99% business and maybe 1% secret Jesus on the side.