ABSTRACT
Around 500 Japanese lived in the Japan House between 1600 and the 1870s, and it was located in a country that has been labeled “the Hermit Kingdom.” The Japanese lived there and came and went throughout a period that has been called the period of “the closed country” (sakoku) for Japan. Both “the Hermit Kingdom” and “the closed country” are European constructions and tell us little or nothing about Korean and Japanese self-conceptions. The Koreans and the Japanese saw themselves interacting with neighboring peoples within systems that were historically produced. It is our concern to know those historical conditions as a way to understand their forms of interaction. We have already discussed the diplomatic, economic, and political contexts, and in the previous chapter, we examined violent confrontations. In this chapter, we offer another case study of contact on the frontier.
