Introduction and a Threat about the early European influence to Japan.
 

My name is Harald Rödl, I am 67 years old and a merchant in Vienna. Now I want tp post an article about the early European influence to Japan: In the year 1543 Portuguese landed from a Chinese ship on the island of Tanegashima, off the southern coast of Kyushu. These were the first Europeans to visit Japan. They introduced the musket, which soon modified Japanese warfare. Other Portuguese ships followed and entered into trade relations with the lords of western Japan. In 1549 St. Francis Xavier, the famous Jesuit missionary, introduced Christianity into Japan, proselytizing in the feudal domains of the west and also at Kyoto, but with no great success. On the whole he was well received and in some cases the feudal lords even encouraged conversations in the hope of attracting Portuguese trade. But the dogmatic intolerance of the missionaries soon earned them the bitter enmity of the usually tolerant Buddhist clergy and led to proscriptions of the new religion in certain fiefs. Xavier, leaving Japan, left behind two Jesuits and many Japanese converts, who formed the nucleus of the new church. In 1568 was the period of National Unification, usually called the Azuchi-Momoyama Period. This was unquestionably one of the most dynamic epochs of Japanese history. The Japanese traders were at their height and were active even in Siamese and Philipine waters. Excess national energy also expressed itself in a great invasion of Korea. Closer contacts with the Asiatic mainland and with Europeans resulted in an influx of new intellectual and artistic currents. Buddhismus was in decline, and its monasteries were being deprived of their military power, but militant christianity was at its height in Japan, and there was a revival of lay learning after the years of warfare. New skills and new products from the occident profoundly affected the economy of the land, and in these years of relative peace the wealth and productivity of the nation expanded rapidly. The private customs barriers which had hampered trade were abolished, and the old monopolistic guilds for the most part came to an end. It was an exuberant, expansive age. Refined simplicity had given way to ostentious pomp and faddism. Architecture, which perhaps most clearly expressed the spirit of the age, showed a love of gorgeous decoration and majestic size. Castles and palaces rather than monasteries were the typical structure of these days. In 1570 Nagasaki was opened to foreign trade by the local lord Omura. A hitherto unimportant fishing village, it soon became Japan's greatest port for foreign commerce.

Thank you. I just read something like this in Wikipedia last night.

I think it's like the rest of Asian nation. The sailors and merchants come to this far east for trading then brought missionary here, then firearms, etc. then they got kick out or got themselves into restricted area because the local govt' don't trust the European, and close its border. Then in 18-19 century, when the imperialism peaked, The European came again. This time with their might to force Asian nation to open their border, then force them to sign unequal treaty.

But for Japan the story is very different from the rest of the Asian nation after this.

Japan became stronger themselves that they can hold its feets against even Russia and become the colony hunter itself when almost all the other nation become the prey of imperialism.

That's what amazing about Japan, the only Asian country that can hold themselves against the west.

^^^ Actually, the one Asian country that has never been colonized by Europeans is Thailand.

It's because we caught in between French and British territories (Indochina & Burma respectively) so they just used us as a border.

Actually we lost quite handful of land mass to the European too especially the western side of Frence Indochina (we annexed part of Laos and Cambodia a long time before that), but since most of the land we lost are our colony, not the main territory. It's still be OK.

Actually when the Axis defeat the Allied early in the war, Japan return some of the land that had been conquered by Frence and Britain to us, but after those days in Hiroshima and Nagasaki you can guess it, we lost it back to France and Britain (but luckily eventhough technically we lost the war but there are a group called "Serithai" that sided with the allies underground and this Serithai with the help of the US, keep us independent)