Bridging the Divide
400 years the Netherlands-Japan
The result of a unique co-operation between Japanese and Dutch scholars to commemorate four hundred years of Dutch-Japanese relations, 'Bridging the Divide', appeared in a Dutch, an English and a Japanese version. Sixty-seven authors have contributed to fifteen chapters. Each chapter centres on a main essay which discusses a specific period or topic and serves as an historical backdrop to a number of one-page columns. These columns, in the words of the editors, 'throw light on salient details in the common four hundred year history'.
By MARGARITA WINKEL
The main essays are divided equally between Japanese and Dutch contributors. In the short columns, Dutch authors are in the majority, presumably because many of these focus on the activities of individual Dutchmen in Japan. The chapters are arranged chronologically. The first two chapters lead us from the beginning of the seventeenth century, when Japanese, Dutch and East Asian trade was in a state of turmoil and strife, to the middle of that century, when the political situations in both countries, as well as in the Dutch-Japanese trade relations, came to be stabilized. The governing Tokugawa shogunate enforced strict rules regarding foreign contact, and the Dutch East India Company (VOC), which then co-ordinated Dutch trade, had to establish itself on Deshima, the man-made island in the Bay of Nagasaki. Chapter Three reveals how the VOC jealously and succesfully guarded its exclusive European rights from other competitors during the next two centuries. Chapters Four, Five, Six and Seven discuss the roles of imported Dutch books and personal instruction from VOC employees in transmitting new intellectual, scientific, medical, and linguistic insights from Europe in this relatively stable period. Chapter Eight recounts the eighteenth-century Japanese craze for exotic foreign objects called 'Dutch taste' (oranda shumi).Chapter Nine focuses on important Japanese objects and collections in the Netherlands. Chapter Ten elaborates upon the final decades of exclusive Dutch presence in Japan in the first half of the nineteenth century, as well as the Dutch role in the transmission of new technology in these early years of the industrial revolution in Europe. After the opening up of Japan, the centre of Dutch-Japanese interaction moved to the Dutch East Indies. Chapter Eleven discusses the lives and activities of Japanese immigrants to the former Dutch colony and the growing Japanese economic interests in this area, which precipitated Japan's increased involvement there during the Pacific War. Chapter Twelve and Thirteen cover the sensitive issues of the war, as well as the Japanese occupation of the Dutch East Indies and its after-effects. Post-war diplomatic, cultural and trade relations are the subject of Chapter Fourteen, and the final chapter reviews recent and future trends in Dutch-Japanese relations in view of current economic and diplomatic globalization.
Bridging the Divide is attractively produced, and the many beautiful and intriguing illustrations greatly enhance its value. Cartoons, drawings, paintings, objects and historical photographs serve to illustrate the stories, raise new questions, and depict the global context of the Dutch-Japanese relationships in a new light. For example, there is a photograph of members of the Chinese community in the Netherlands who survived of the war in Europe and can be seen celebrating Japan's capitulation with a parade in the streets of Amsterdam in August 1945.
The concept of a bridge and its corresponding sides figures prominently in the title and in the introduction, where the editors quote from Bernard Schlink's The Reader: 'To study history means building bridges between past and present, to study both sides and to be active on both sides'. Although absences are easy to bemoan in a collection of this scope, I would like to point out that the bridge in this book primarily spans the gap between Deshima and mainland Japan, and only occasionally extends as far as the Netherlands. Even for the early modern period, when the effect of Japan on the Netherlands was unmistakably much less than the other way around. The eighteenth-century craze for Japanese kimono in the Netherlands, for example, which astonished visitors from other European countries, would have deserved at least a one-page column to balance the picture of historical cultural influences*. In the present, Japanese economic and, not to mention, cultural influences in the Netherlands far exceed Dutch influence on Japan. Sushi, judo, karaoke and ikebana, for example, have become household words for the Dutch. The one chapter, however, which focuses on recent years pays no attention to these more anthropological topics.
Although written primarily by academic historians, the texts are not annotated. In this sense, Bridging the Divide is not a scholarly publication. The (implicit) aim of the book is to enlighten the general public on the research and latest insights in the field of the history of Japanese-Dutch relations, and it serves this purpose well. The book provides accessible background information and interesting short stories written by knowledgeable authors, and contains a general list of 130 'suggestions for further reading' in English and in Dutch. Also, the editors' statement in their introduction that 'The essence of the four hundred year relationship between Japan and the Netherlands can only be grasped within the wider context of world history' is duly reflected in the contents of the book, and people with an interest in the history of international exchange and interaction in East Asia will also find a wealth of information here. *
* described in M. Peeze, Japanese gowns: The kimono in the Netherlands, in: In the wake of the Liefde, Amsterdam, 1986, pp 83-87.
Reference
- Leonard Blussé, Ivo Smits,
and Willem Remmelink (eds)
Bridging the Divide: 400 years the Netherlands-Japan,
Leiden: Hotei Publishing,
Teleac/Not, 2000, 288 pp,
isbn 90-74822-24-x hb
Margarita Winkel, Japan editor for the IIAS Newsletter
E-mail: m.winkel@let.leidenuniv.nl