Culture in contact: the case of Edo-Japan and Ayutthaya

Abstract

Since olden days people living in one locality moved to another place for trade, military expedition, religious mission and other purposes, which often resulted in bringing two or more differing cultures into contact. In Asia and, in particular, in Southeast Asia, peaceful trade seems to have played a more prominent role in cultural contact than armed operation. South and East China Seas provided enterprising merchants with ideal passage through which Southeast Asia was commercially connected with the great market of East Asia. In this short paper, a case of Japanese contact with Southeast Asia shall be considered with special reference to pre-modern Siamese kingdom of Ayutthaya.

Prior to any direct involvement of the Thai and the Japanese merchants into the arena of trade, the Ryukyuans energetically worked in order to connect the two parts of Asia commercially. It happened to coincide with the time when the Ming China who then was suffering from the plague of the "Japanese" pirates, adopted the so-called "hai- ching" policy whereby no Chinese were allowed to go abroad for trade themselves despite the ever increasing need of Southeast Asian exotic commodities such as pepper and sapanwood in the Chinese market. The Ryukyuans thus came to fill the lucrative vacuum in the Asian market.