I've just finished reading Grant K. Goodman's Japan: the Dutch Experience for the book report I have to write for Early Modern European History. The book deals more with the Japanese than the Dutch but my professor said that this book was fine to do my report on.

I found the willingness of the Dutch to jump through numerous hoops in the name of trade most amusing. Relegated to a small Island in Nagasaki's harbour, the Dutch had an overgrown bureaucracy assigned to them by the Japanese which the Dutch were financially responsible for. All Dutch property was subject to search and seizure at any time. When the Dutch entered the harbour, their rudders, guns and ammunition were removed while their ships were "inspected" by officials (in other words, officials took their cut.) Religious services were forbidden (kinjuru - a word I remember from James Clavell's Shogun yay!) Perhaps feeling sorry for the Dutch, the Japanese did allow them use of the local prostitutes. No church services? Prostitutes Galore? All of this makes me think these particular Dutchmen weren't your strict Calvinists. An account of the yearly Dutch visit to the shogun is even more amusing, "Soon after we came in, and had, after our usual observances, seated ourselves in the emperor's (sic) name, he then desired us to sit upright, to take off our cloaks, to tell him our names and age, to stand up, to walk, to turn about, to sing songs, to compliment one another, to be angry, to discourse in a familiar way like father and son, to show how two friends or man and wife compliment or take leave of one another, to play with children, to carry them about in our arms, and to do many things of a like nature . . . Then they made us kiss one another like man and wife, which the ladies particularly showed by their laughter to be well pleased with."

Incidentally - kissing was unknown to the Japanese until the Europeans introduced the practice. Perhaps the Japanese women were not laughing out of pleasure, as suggested, but rather over how ridiculous kissing looked. Anyhow, the capacity of two Dutch men to engage in homoerotic behaviour all in the name of trade is most amusing. I also read that at one point the shogun asked the Dutchmen to demonstrate their method in urinating. I'm not sure how much cultural variety there is in urinary methods but perhaps the shogun gained some insight into that.