The Wealth and Poverty of Nations: Why Some Are So Rich and Some So Poor (W W Norton & Company; 1998)

JAPAN: AND THE LAST SHALL BE FIRST^351

tuguese Jesuit put it, those who knew Japan "set it before all the coun­
tries of the East, and compared it with those of the West in its size, the
number of its cities, and its warlike and cultured people."^2 This image
persisted, even after the Japanese stopped fighting:

The national character is strikingly marked, and strongly contrasted with

that which generally prevails throughout Asia. The Japanese differ most es­

pecially from the Chinese, their nearest neighbors.... Instead of that tame,

quiet, orderly, servile disposition which makes [the Chinese] the prepared

and ready subjects of despotism, the Japanese have a character marked by

energy, independence and a lofty sense of honour.^3

The Europeans were used to strange peoples; the Japanese, not:

The Japanese were first surprised to see the red-bearded, blue-eyed men,

and then astonished by the natural power of their guns and powder. They

were made to realize how great was the world ... by the strange birds, cu­

rious beasts, precious silk, and beautiful damask brought from islands in the

tropical zone and China. They wondered at the ideas and learning... the

Japanese people, putting all this together, believed that there was a new

heaven and earth far over the sea, and were thirsty to know this civilization.

For this civilization was not like the quiet study of Confucianism, but a

practical achievement before their eyes. Those who came from this new

heaven and earth raised the price of merchandise, which had been almost

a drug, to the great surprise of the Japanese, and demanded an unlimited

supply, so that even a blade of grass or a tree had some value in the mar­

ket.... The Japanese could not understand why this foreign trade was prof­

itable to them. That they should become intimate with the Portuguese

thus rich and thus strong, and learn their civilization, was the general idea

of that time....^4

In these circumstances, European visitors got a much warmer greet­
ing than they had received in China. The Chinese had wanted to quar­
antine them, like an infection. The Japanese, as soon as they realized
the mighty powers of these strangers—their ability, for example, to
shoot down birds in flight—took them in with open arms and vied with
one another to learn their secrets. They also sought to trade with them,
because the gains were substantial. And the Europeans, on their side,
seeing an opportunity to plant themselves in this welcoming society
and get rich, scurried to make themselves useful. These wonderfully ex­
otic Japanese had good tradables and placed an inordinately high value
on European things and a foolishly low value on their own. Two