JAPAN: AND THE LAST SHALL BE FIRST^353
worlds embraced, and each thought itself fortunate and the other gen
erous.
The Japanese were learners because they had unlimited aspirations.
Their mythology told of a ruler descended from the sun goddess and
a land at the center of creation. They thought of themselves as a peo
ple specially chosen, as warrior-dominators with all of East Asia as le
gitimate domain.* They had long been culturally subordinate to China,
takers rather than givers, students rather than teachers. Their ideo
graphic writing and writing implements came from China; much of
their language as well.^1 " Their knowledge of silk, ceramics, and printing,
their furnishings and the style of their paintings, their Buddhist beliefs,
their knowledge of Confucianism—all from China. Yet learning never
made them feel smaller; on the contrary, they thought themselves in-
herendy superior to the Chinese.^5
So, when the Japanese encountered the Europeans, they went about
learning their ways. They copied their arms; they imitated their time
keepers; they converted in large numbers to Christianity. And still felt
superior.
The vogue for Christianity seemed destined to sweep all. The new
faith had much success among local rulers, and even more among the
marginal members of a hard, edge-of-subsistence population. These
were classical conversion strategies: get the leaders to come along and
let them compel their subjects; or give love and nourishment to those
in need of moral and material support. Some daimyd (rulers of h an)
and samurai (members of the warrior aristocracy) became Christian
out of conviction. Christianity offered a comfort and spirituality miss
ing in traditional rites and gestures. Others converted for practical
reasons: Christianity provided a channel to European trade and tech-
- Toyotomi Hideyoshi, "chancellor" (dajo daijin) and effective ruler of Japan from
1586 to 1598, thought it reasonable to envisage the conquest not only of Korea and
China but also India. The Japanese clearly had no accurate idea of the size and popu
lation of these places. But who knows? Centuries later, some Japanese still saw all of
this as a legitimate field of conquest. Writing of the Philippines in the sixteenth cen
tury, Yosoburo Takekoshi, author of Economic Aspects of the History of the Civilization
°f Japan (1930), expressed disappointment (1,482): "Originally the Japanese occupied
the Islands before Spain, and as they had thus the right of previous residence the sov
ereignty should have been theirs, whereas Spain acquired them." No wonder the Eu
ropeans liked the Japanese: they thought alike.
f Many of the Japanese ideographs have dual readings, one in the native Japanese, the
other in a Chinese derivative; thus hara-kiri and seppuku. Others have only the "Chi
nese" reading. The adoption of these signs and meanings added enormously to Japan
ese vocabulary, particularly in abstract concepts.