Japan The Dutch Experience Summary

The Dutch played a significant role in developing the Japanese interest in Western culture. The primary sources in the textbook both offer evidence of this influential role that the Dutch played in Japanese culture. The Japanese were very intrigued with the west and studied the western culture over a period of two centuries of trade with the Dutch. The articles by Engelbert Kaempfer and Grant Goodman are related to each other in that they both show the level of interest the Japanese had about western culture, specifically around medicine, politics, religion and other such topics during the Japanese Tokugawa period. The article by Kaempfer as well as the article by Goodman were written in completely different time frames. Kaempfer wrote his in 1727, while Goodman’s was more recent, with him having written it in 1986. The Kaempfer extract on page 48 and 49 of the textbook is an extract from his “The History of Japan” and contains a history of the Dutch experience with the Japanese, specifically trips to visit the shogun on Dejima. The article by Goodman on pages 48 and 49, which was written in 1986, is from his “Japan: The Dutch Experience”. It is about how the Japanese viewed the West during the Tokugawa period, which is the same period that is covered in the article by Kaempfer.

It is interesting that they were both written centuries apart, yet touch on the same topics. The article by Kaempfer is written from the perspective of the Dutch, while the article by Goodman is written from the perspective of the Japanese. Both demonstrate the Japanese interest in western ways, and the curiosity the Japanese had with the west. The purpose of both is to demonstrate how western culture impacted the Japanese, and what they were able to adopt from the west and work into their own