Bulletin of Portuguese - Japanese Studies
ISSN: 0874-8438
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Universidade Nova de Lisboa
Portugal
Ribeiro, Madalena
Reseña de "The Junk Trade from Southeast Asia. Translations from the Tôsen Fusetsu- Gaki, 16741723" de Ishii Yoneo (ed.)
Bulletin of Portuguese - Japanese Studies, núm. 2, june, 2001, pp. 158-160
Universidade Nova de Lisboa
Lisboa, Portugal
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158
Book Reviews
Edition by Ishii Yoneo.
Preface by Anthony Reid.
The Junk Trade from Southeast Asia.
Translations from the Tôsen FusetsuGaki, 1674-1723
(Singapore, Institute of Southeast Asia
Studies, 1998)
In the mid sixteenth century,
Japan initiated the process that would
culminate in the centralization of
power and, at the same time, came into
contact with foreigners coming from
abroad. A little later, at the end of the
sixteenth century and the beginning of
the seventeenth century, a commercial
expansion also took place, that encompassed a large part of Southeast Asia.
One of the main measures implemented by the Tokugawa Shogunate to promote external trade consisted of the
creation of official travel and commercial licenses for Japanese merchants.
The ships that these traders sent
abroad had a capacity of 200 men and
were called the “red seal ships” or goshui-sen. Japanese immigrants - merchants, sailors, rônin, etc - fomented
trade relations between the areas in
which they had settled and Japan.
Scattered throughout Southeast Asia
were to be found Japanese quarters in
which these immigrants lived together
in groups and remained a closed community1. After the mid seventeenth
century, at the same time that their
main source of income dried up, these
Japanese would also discover that they
had no possibility of returning to their
country of origin.
In effect, at the same time that
the ships of the go-shui-sen ploughed
the seas, internal Japanese politics
underwent a profound change with the
advent of the Tokugawa Shogunate
(1603-1868). In the second quarter of
the seventeenth century the dynasty
implemented the policy of the sakoku
and effectively closed Japan’s doors to
the rest of the world during more than
two centuries2. The Shogunate did not
intend to isolate the country by this
policy but, rather, aimed to eradicate
Christianity and control external relations so as to avoid any possible
revival3. Other reasons cited for this
isolationist policy are related to issues
of an economic nature, arising from
the decrease in the extraction of silver
and the fear that some daimyô could
enrich themselves greatly with this
trade and instigate revolts against the
newly established central authority.4
However, this isolationist
policy did not diminish the demand for
certain commodities in the archipelago
and, from this point onwards,
Japanese commerce, that had initially
been realized by Portuguese and
Japanese, passed into the hands of
Chinese and Dutch merchants. From
1639 onwards, the latter were to be the
sole Europeans authorized to trade
with the Empire of the Rising Sun. The
presence of the Chinese junks - the
tôsen - and the ships of the VOC at the
port of Nagasaki (which was the only
Book Reviews
port open to foreign trade till 1853)
was implacably controlled by the
Japanese authorities. This was to prove
to be the only way by which Japan
could obtain certain products that
were essential components of the
Japanese market, as well as the only
means by which Japan could have
access to any kind of information
about the happenings of the world
beyond the archipelago.
In this manner, these Chinese
and Dutch sailors and merchants, who
arrived annually at the port of
Nagasaki from the most varied parts of
the world, were the principal sources
of information about the outside world
for the Japanese authorities. From
1644 onwards, the captains of these
ships were obliged to prepare reports the fûsetsu-gaki - with this information. Three copies were then made: one
for the authorities in Edo, the other for
the bugyô of the city, and the last copy
for the interpreter5. According to Ishii
Yoneo, fûsetsu - that literally means
“rumour” - refers to the interview to
which the Dutch and Chinese were
subjected to when they arrived at
Nagasaki. Once this interview was
transcribed onto paper, it was then
known as the fûsetsu-gaki: Tôsen
fûsetsu-gaki were the reports by the
Chinese and Oranda fûsetsu-gaki were
those by the Dutch6. A Chinese interpreter was nominated from amongst
the Chinese population resident in the
Nagasaki quarter, to elaborate the
former, the Tôsen fûsetsu-gaki. Accor-
159
ding to the aforementioned author, the
creation of the post of “Inspector of
Chinese Interpreters”, in 1696, was
proof of the extreme caution taken in
the nomination of these interpreters.
This was followed three years later, in
1699, by the establishment of the
“Officer in Charge of the Fûsetsu”7
Ishii Yoneo informs us that
there currently exist three collections
of manuscripts of the Tôsen fûsetsugaki: the Kai-Hentai, the KikôShosetsu and lastly, the texts known
simply as the Tôsen fûsetsu-gaki, that
is to be found in the “Matsudaira
Bunko of the Shimabara Municipal
Library”. The first two were published
in 1958-59 and the last one in 1974.
The English edition, prepared by Ishii
Yoneo, was based on the Japanese
edition of 1958-59, and does not therefore include the last manuscript indicated above, that covers the years
between 1724 and 17288. On the other
hand, as the very title of the work indicates, Ishii has opted to include only
the reports by the Chinese who junks
came from Southeast Asia, namely,
from “Siam, Pattani, Ligor, Songhkla,
Cambodia, Kelapa, Malacca and
Banten” - following the order of the
respective chapters of this book. The
reports of the junks coming from
China and the Vietnamese coast which,
according to Ishii, constitute the major
part of the documentation, have been
excluded.
Here, we would like to further
elaborate upon the source itself, and its
160
Book Reviews
importance for the study of Southeast
Asia and the Far East. As a general
rule, from the thematic point of view,
we can divide these reports into two
parts. In one part, the Chinese recount
information about their journey, from
the point of departure up until their
arrival at the port of Nagasaki. Here,
they generally give details of the port
from which they set sail, of the other
ships which were anchored there, any
chance encounters - peaceful or not with other ships on the high seas, of
the nationalities of the crews, of the
scarcity or lack of provisions and
water, and of the climatic conditions in
which the voyage was made - storms,
winds or currents which they encountered and their consequences. Here we
find some references to the socio-political disorder within China, resulting
from the tumultuous dynastic change,
and other references that show how
this war was transported to the China
Seas. This data is also an important
indication of the interest that Japan
continued to show for whatever
happened in China. On the other hand,
in another part of the same report, the
Chinese take great pains to give information - both political as well as socioeconomic, which we would classify as
being the “latest news” - about the
kingdoms of Southeast Asia from
which they set sail.
In the context of Japan, the
Tôsen fûsetsu-gaki is an important
source for information such as, for
example, the frequency with which the
junks visited Japan to trade their goods
and the commodities that were of
greatest interest for the internal
market. It also indicates the kind of
information that the Japanese tried to
obtain from the Chinese with regard to
the “outside world”.
In conclusion, we can say that
the Tôsen fûsetsu-gaki is clear proof of
the efficiency of the sakoku policy,
which was implemented by the Tokugawa Shogunate, and is an indication
of the way in which they maintained
strict control of all the information
that came from outside.
Madalena Ribeiro
Holder of a scholarship from
the Fundação Oriente.
1 With regard to the Japanese quarters scattered
throught Southeast Asia, see Ishizawa Yoshiaki,
“Les quartiers japonais dans l’Asie du sud-est au
XVIIème siècle” in Guerre et Paix en Asie du
Sud-Est, Nguyên the Anh and Alain Forest
Edition, Paris, 1998, pp. 85-94.
2 With regard to the establishment of the policy
of the sokoku see the chapter entitled “Foreign
Relations” in the classic work by George
Sansom, A History of Japan, 1615-1867, 9th
Edition, Tokyo, Vol. 3, pp. 35-45.
3 See Michel Vié, Histoire du Japon, des origines
à Meiji, 5th Edition, Paris, 1995, p. 89.
4 See Francine Hérail, Histoire du Japon, des
origines à la fin de Meiji, Paris, 1986, pp. 332333 and Marius B. Jansen, China in the
Tokugawa World, Harvard, 1992, p. 28.
5 See Marius B. Jansen, Op.Cit. p. 12.
6 See Ishii Yonei, The Junk Trade from Southeast
Asia. Translations from the Tôsen Fusetsu-Gaki,
1674-1723. p. 6.
7 See Ibidem, p. 6.
8 See Ibidem, pp. 6-7.