![]() ![]() Many foreigners were befriended by Japanese rulers, and their ability was sometimes recognized to the point of promoting one to the rank of samurai (William Adams), and giving him a fief in the Miura Peninsula, south of Edo. The Japanese were introduced to several new technologies and cultural practices (so were the Europeans to Japanese, see Japonism), whether in the military area (the arquebus, European-style cuirasses, European ships), religion (Christianity), decorative art, language (integration to Japanese of a Western vocabulary) and culinary: the Portuguese introduced the tempura and above all the valuable refined sugar, creating nanbangashi ( 南蛮菓子), "southern barbarian confectionery", with confectioneries like castella, konpeitō, aruheitō, karumera, keiran sōmen, bōro and bisukauto. They cannot understand the meaning of written characters. They show their feelings without any self-control. They eat with their fingers instead of with chopsticks such as we use. The culture shock was quite strong, especially due to the fact that Europeans were not able to understand the Japanese writing system nor accustomed to using chopsticks. Following contact with the Portuguese on Tanegashima in 1542, the Japanese were at first rather wary of the newly arrived foreigners. ![]()
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