Talk:Dejima/Archive 1

Comment

Hey Larry, thanks for the excellent link

Dejima also serves a fictional role as a man-made island and home to refugees in the world of Ghost in the Shell: 2nd Gig, who grow to become separatist due to elaborate circumstances.

I think this is indeed relevant (it's not just coincidence that the Ghost in the Shell writers named it "dejima") and deserves to show up on the page somewhere. Must think about how to write it. --Crypticfortune 00:29, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

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This is going to seem like a stupid question, but if the Dutch couldn't leave Dejima to go to Nagasaki, and the Japanese generally couldn't go to Dejima (other than prostitutes), how did the two peoples' trade?

In contrast to daimyo, the Japanese delegation traveled to Edo yearly between 1660 and 1790 and once every four years thereafter.

I suppose this is "Dutch" instead of "Japanese". David.Monniaux 11:49, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

The claim that the Japanese couldn't go to the island is restricted to "regular Japanese". The government still had a steady contingent of officials (who would conduct trade), staff, cooks and the like on the island. These people were all hand-picked and thoroughly checked for loyalty to the shogunate, so as not to reveal any, even the most trivial, data about the Japan of the time. In itself, the claim that only prostitutes were allowed to freely enter and leave the island seems a bit absurd. If every Japanese that had access to the island was severly checked, why would the government allow just about any prostitute from the street to enter? Would this not make all the background checks of every other Japanese on the island futile? If anybody, a prostitute would be expected to spill information that the shogunate was so desperate to conceal. No, in my opinion, the prostitutes themselves were "part of the staff", and I would imagine just as thoroughly checked for loyalty as any other Japanese on the island. So claiming that the prostitutes on the island were part of the regular populace seems like cleansing of a historical truth - that the prostitutes were probably there on official shogunate business, as much as the government officials.213.172.254.119 08:47, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Forgot to add what I wanted to write in the first place. Shouldn't there be an agreement as to whether Deshima or Dejima is going to be used throughout the text? I don't want to make corrections, because my knowledge of the island is limited, and I would hate to make an arbitrary decision (if I had to, I would go with Dejima, but...). Other than that, great article! 213.172.254.119 08:51, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

I've added some details to the text, answering your questions. The prostitutes were indeed handpicked at first. But in the 18th century, the Dutch were allowed to visit Maruyama, the brothel district of Nagasaki. These visits grew sometimes in long-lasting relationships, resulting in children of mixed descent. The name "Dejima" is used in Dutch handbooks, but this is only a phonetic transcription of the Japanse name. JoJan 18:25, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

I have personnally never heard the word being pronouced "Deshima" in Japanese, although I agree it sometimes appears that way in ancient Western source. On Goggle, "Dejima" gives about 3 times more hit than "Deshima". Using a search with the Japanese script 出島　でしま (Dejima pronounced Deshima) gives only 170 return, referring apparently to another geographical locaton. There are also a few mentions that indeed the island was called Deshima at first. On the contrary 出島　でじま (Dejima pronounced Dejima) gives 10,000 hits. Overall, it seems to me "Dejima" should be the standard name of the article, mentionning of course alternative pronounciations and transliterations. PHG 21:39, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

That's also my personal opinionJoJan 21:55, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

You might want to reconsider the use of Dejima instead of Deshima. If you Google for the name, you will find dejima as the most often used reading because it is currently used as an area name in Nagasaki — the area where Deshima once lay. Of course, the pronunciation now matches modern Japanese, which is what inevitably dominates the Google result list. Japanese historical sources would tend towards 出島 written in kanji, which doesn't help you find the reading used at that time. Dutch historical sources on the other hand would reflect the pronounced word. I am not familiar with any scholarly source using Dejima instead of Deshima, but the reverse is certainly true; e.g. W.J. Boot, Keizers en Shōgun, p.95. 82.139.81.111 (talk) 10:04, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

"1690: The Dutch physician E. Kaempfer comes to Dejima."

The article on Engelbert Kaempfer says he is a German physician, not Dutch. Should this be changed? --Lost-theory 04:37, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

He was German but had to to pass himself off as a Dutchman, as Japan at that time was only open to protestant Dutch merchants. The same applied to Thunberg. Anyway,I've changed his nationality description into German (even if Germany, as we know today, didn't exist at that time). JoJan 09:19, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

List of Dutch Opperhoofden or Kapitans

Do we need this gigantic list? I think it belongs in another article, say List of Dutch Captains who landed at Dejima? -Amake 07:30, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

In my view, your point is well taken. The list is ungainly, awkward --yes; and at this point, it conveys scant useful information. Others have also objected to this list -- and for the same sort of self-evident reasons, I suspect. But for the time being, I would resist any removal because of the way that long list of names in red may serve to encourage someone to fill in the blanks. At a minimum, this long list becomes a kind of noticeboard about a new page which will have been created about one of these men (but not otherwise linked to Dejima). It happens that this odd list becomes the only alert -- a kind of "heads up" in the form of a trivial change from red to blue print. There is a similar list on some congruent Dejima pages of other Wikipedias; and it was only because of the colour change that I was able to bring information, for example, from the Afrikans Wikipedia to ours.

The various iterations of this list across the Wikipedia array become like fishing nets. Thus far, the catch is sparse; but perhaps you might agree to revisit this issue in 2008? Lest you under-appreciate these unfamous VOC men, I might suggest you look at the article published in the July issue of Nature by His Majesty the Emperor of Japan, who mildly makes my case in different terms. -- text of speech given to Linneus Society in London mentioning Englebert Kaempfer, Carl Peter Thunberg, and Philipp Franz von Siebold from Dejima

At some point in the future, perhaps the Dejima opperhoofden could be moved to a linked page, as has been done with the list of people buried at Père-Lachaise in Paris. In other Wikipedias, the list of famous people buried in this old cemetery has been almost entirely delegated to a kind of sub-page ....

==Burials at Père-Lachaise==

• Miguel Ángel Asturias — Guatemalan diplomat and author, Nobel Prize in Literature 1967
• Jean-Pierre Aumont — actor, father of Tina Aumont and husband of Maria Montez.
• Honoré de Balzac — great French novelist of the 19th century.

I wonder if you might be persuaded to hold your legitimate reservations in abeyance? Of course, I'd expect you to continue to watch this page over the next few months .... Ooperhoofd 15:59, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

The Dutch Wikipedia editors have done as you seem to propose. See nl:Lijst van Opperhoofden van Dejima. This additional bit of information seems to weaken my argument, but there you have it. Ooperhoofd 18:19, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Dejima Portugese colony?

I don't see how Dejima could be understood to have been a Portugese colony; but if there were some source which supported that perceived construct, the discovery would be a real eye-opener. Frankly, I'd rather be wrong than right on this one. Bluedenim added Dejima to the category of Former Portuguese colonies; and I reverted that edit.

• (cur) (last) 17:37, 16 October 2007 Ooperhoofd (Talk | contribs) (29,451 bytes) (Undid revision 164938299 by Bluedenim (talk)never a colony--see Dejima talk page) (undo)
• (cur) (last) 12:30, 16 October 2007 Bluedenim (Talk | contribs) (29,491 bytes) (added Category:Former Portuguese colonies) (undo)

In the undo-edit summary, I invited further discussion here. --Ooperhoofd 17:48, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

The Portuguese first arrived in Japan in 1542 (on the island Tanegashima). Later they were allowed to set up a trading post on the island Hirado (in front of the southern island Kyushu). The Portuguese sent each year a ship from their Chinese settlement Macao to this island, trading silk for silver. Their missionary work brought them in conflict first with Toyotomo Hideyoshi and later his successor Tokugawa Ieyasu. The Dutch ship "De Liefde", chartered by the Flemish merchants Pieter van der Hagen and Johan van der Veeken, arrived in 1598 in Japan. The English helmsman Will Adams could convince the shogun that the Dutch had a different religion than the Portuguese. Portuguese trade was restricted in 1603. Several missionaries were executed. Quaeckernaeck, captain of de Liefde obtained a trade permit from the shogun in 1605. The English also obtained a trade permit in 1613 but withdrew in 1623. The Spanish, who operated from Manila, also stopped trade with Japan in 1624. The Portuguese came under strict control in 1623. The shogun ordered in 1634 the construction of Dejima, an artificial island in the bay of Nagasaki to house the Portuguese. After the quelling of the Shimibara rebellion in 1637, all trade relations with the Portuguese were forbidden. From then on, the Dutch moved to Dejima. During all these years, the Portuguese could never claim to possess a colony in Japan. On the contrary, the Portuguese were strictly controlled by the shogun. JoJan 20:22, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

JoJan -- yes. That was an excellent and remarkably concise summary of the history of Portugese trade. You have indeed delivered a perceptive narrative of well-accepted facts; but it happens that Bluedenim is a Wikipedian from Portugal. Our understanding of Kyushu's chronology of historical events is coherent, plain, accepted; but I suppose it may well be that there were those in Portugal or Rome who -- in the 16th-17th centuries, perhaps -- did construe something they called a "colony" at Nagasaki ...? If so, wouldn't you rather be wrong than right on this one -- if only for the sense of astonished surprise? Do you see my point?

This sounds a little bit like the kind of "counter-historical" exercise Niall Ferguson proposed at Oxford a few years ago.

• See: Counterfactual history

On the other hand, it's probably nothing more than a simple mistake. I dunno. In any case, this edit did capture my imagination a little bit.--Ooperhoofd 21:59, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Have dated pictures

Given this article's historical interest, I wanted to know if I was looking at images created at the same time or later than events, so added dates to them. I think it's important for accuracy in an article of this type. Also, in the same way, it may be appropriate to label the images from Malaysia, for instance. The clothing of the Chinese in 1880 likely is not the same as what people would have seen in the early 19th c. at Dejima. Interesting photos, images and topic. Although the governors of Dejima have apparently had pages written about them, so they are blue-linked, perhaps the list could be simplified by using only the years of their tenure here, rather than including days and months, since the more detailed information can be found elsewhere. All those numbers seem too much.Parkwells (talk) 19:49, 30 May 2011 (UTC) ,

Unrelated picture?

What in the world does the 1880s Malaysian picture of the Fujianese worker and the Chinese-costumed official have to do with this article at all? I don't see the link to Dejima. Grasping at straws, the Japanese did occupy Malaysia for a time in the 1940s but there was no Japanese presence in Malaysia in 1880 except for about a hundred workers. This may be mislabeled or misplaced. (Just noticed in passing - I don't have enough expertise to be certain one way or the other)

Derek Chong (talk) 02:37, 20 June 2012 (UTC)