This is how Americans were first seen in Japan

    by Old_Oil1739

    43 Comments

    1. I vaguely remember reading in college that both the first Portugese arriving in Japan and their Japanese counterparts each describing each other (not to each others’ faces, of course) as “savages”

    2. Following-Complete on

      I personally believe japanese painters just sucked. All the paintings have weird googly eyes and what not and sure some professional fancy art expert says it was just a style for the period, but i for one think they were just not at the same level as europeans.

    3. Euphoric-Owl5065 on

      If you read the Wikipedia article for kung fu they basically describe the guy who came over and invented it (even though he has a sankrit like name) as being European. “Blue eyes”.

    4. This isn’t so egregious when you look at how they portrayed themselves. It was just an artistic style.

    5. Hmmm…no. The artist was probably following the particular style of drawing from Japan.

      Edit : removed a broken link

    6. Japan had been trading with the Dutch and Portuguese for a while before the US made major overtures. They would be familiar with white people

    7. forvirradsvensk on

      No, this was an artistic image for propaganda purposes. Ukiyo-e art style uses caricature to begin with – much like political cartoons you’d see in Western newspapers of the time (or even today). The Japanese had been dealing with white Europeans for centuries.

    8. SongFeisty8759 on

      I remember seeing a woodcutting of the the birth of a half Dutch, half japanese child who was born with a full beard and immediately kicked the midwife across the room.

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