Hellraezer, people from the Pacific islands and Asia, including China, were the first non-Japanese people to set foot on Japanese soil.
People from white, or western nations, arrived many centuries later. Not to burst your bubble, but the idea that white men were the first to do everything, is pure fantasy. The vast majority of the world's human population had been living, and thriving, in what Europeans called the "new world" for thousands of years before any white man even knew these lands existed.
Again, I remind you that 200 years before the Shogun story, and 75 years before Columbus set sail, the Chinese admiral, Zeng He, had commanded seven ocean expeditions, on a fleet of more than three hundred ships, carrying upwards of 37,000 sailors. Today, these ships remain the largest wooden ships ever built, in all human history.
Shogun is a story about the struggles the Portuguese experienced when trying to monopolize trade between Japan and all of Europe (aka Christendom). As I said, the Portuguese used their trading post on Chinese soil (Macau) as a foothold in the new world.
White people forget that the white world began and ended on the Atlantic Ocean. As a result, every inch of land, connected to the Pacific Ocean and its passageways was a "new world" to western Europeans.
Naturally, Europeans entering these unknown lands for the first time, were dumbstruck, by the wealth, technology, and beauty of civilizations that exceeded anything they'd ever seen, or imagined. By comparison, European civilization looked, felt and smelled like a cesspool. The Shogun series, highlights the contrast between the cleanliness of the Japanese people and the filth that Europeans were accustomed to.
As you know, Muslim, Buddhism, and Hinduism dominated Eurasian societies. More than weaponry and armies European domination has always depended on converting local populations to Christianity. When the Chinese forbid Christian mission work inside their borders, the Portuguese had no hope of dominating China. That is the reason, that the Portuguese in the Shogun story were so excited when they had a chance to build a church in exchange for their support.
When it came to trade, white Europeans were centuries behind the rest of the world. I know it's hard to wrap your white head around, but Spivey is correct, dark skinned people had been living all over Asia for centuries before white Europeans arrived.
Sad but true, white people still cannot tell the difference between skin colours in civilizations far older than their own. For example, a lot of white people, especially Americans, still arrive in India for the first time and ask where did all the black people come from? When it comes to history, it is fair to say, that white people are still behind, even backwards.
