ABSTRACT
This chapter presents a recreation of the assessment of Europe by later-eighteenth-century Japan. The Japanese term was Ran — Holland disembodied from its Netherlandish self. The Dutchmen seen in Japan did not amount to the whole story. The Japanese assessment of Holland is not entirely dissimilar to the Dutch self-myth, but the point is to stress that there is no priority to the latter. Assessment of the “Batavian temperament” radiated from one central presumed characteristic of Ran: a love of precision — seisho, bisai, sasai, seimyo, komakaki, kuwashiki — many words were used to denote this. Such Rangaku enthusiasts produced the blueprint of what was the Batavian temperament. Only the top brass of the Vereenigde Oost Indische Compannie came on the hofreis, whereas Edo was most readily visible in its mob, so the dice were entirely loaded in the Dutchmen’s favour.
