Title

Nagasaki’s Qing-Dynasty Merchants and Edo Period Chinese Poems: An Investigation into Newly Discovered Books by Jiang Yun Ge and Shen Ping Xiang

Author

Yi Cai

Genre

Article  

Pages

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Language

Key words

Jiang Yunge, Shen Pingxiang, Rai Sanyo, Nihon Gakufu

Abstract

    During the Edo period, due to the Tokugawa Shogunate’s closed policy, Japanese were not allowed to go overseas. The only exception was the port of Nagasaki, which facilitated the trade between China and Holland. Therefore, merchants in the Qing dynasty traveling between Nagasaki and China played a vital role for cultural exchange. The newly discovered 52 letters written by Jiang Yun Ge and Shen Ping Xiang, two of Nagasaki’s Qing merchants, have revealed many unknown stories about Japan-Sino contacts during this period. One that is of particular interest is about their relationship with Raisanyo.

    At the end of 1828, Raisanyo wrote “Nihon Gafuku” containing 66 pieces. His friend, Mizunobisen of Nagasaki, asked Jiang Yun Ge and Shen Ping Xiang to invite reviews from renowned Chinese writes and to put the reviews into the famous “Zhi Bu Zu Zhai journals”. With the help of Shen Ping Xiang, Chinese writers Weng Guang Ping and Qian Yong wrote a prelude and a poem respectively for “ Nihon Gakufu”. This anecdote demonstrates how Japanese poems were re-exported to China. It is interesting to find that while Japanese sinologists, were strongly influenced by Chinese culture, they tried hard to express their voices in Sinosphere.