True Story of Samurai William in Japan
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TravelTranscript
00:00Hey guys, some of you guys would be familiar with a book called Shogun, which was written
00:22by James Clavel.
00:24And if you haven't read the book, you might have seen the miniseries, there's quite a
00:28good miniseries.
00:29It was quite some time ago, but it's still circulating.
00:32And it had Richard Chamberlain in it, and it was a pretty good miniseries, and it was
00:37actually based on a true story about a man called William Adams.
00:44And apparently in 1598, he went to Holland from England, so he was an Englishman, and
00:56he went to Holland and joined up with a fleet of ships that were sailing to America somewhere,
01:04and they had one piece of bad luck after another, and they started with five ships, and in the
01:11end they had one, and William Adams was the pilot of that ship, and he steered them from
01:19America to Japan.
01:21His idea apparently, that he thought that was the best way for them to get out of the
01:24trouble they were in, and they arrived in Japan, and there were seven of them left out
01:29of the five shipfuls of men, and in the end there were seven left, including William Adams,
01:36and they arrived in Kyushu in 1600, maybe.
01:44It's been a while.
01:45I read the William Adams book called Samurai William, and that was a long time ago.
01:52Since then I have seen a few things about it, because it does come up now and again
01:54around the place, but yeah, sketchy memory.
01:58But yeah, about 1600 he arrived in Kyushu, and at the time there weren't any Englishmen
02:05or Dutch here, there were Portuguese and some Spanish, and at the time the Portuguese and
02:11the Spanish were actually at war with the English and the Dutch, so here's this Englishman
02:16turned up with a bunch of Dutch guys, and they were the first, he was the first Englishman
02:21to arrive in Japan, and there were Portuguese here, who were actually their enemy, they
02:26were actually at war with, but the Portuguese acted as translators, and translated for him
02:31to the Japanese people, and word got back to Tokugawa Eisu, who wasn't yet Shogun, but
02:40was too soon to be Shogun, and he said he wanted to meet him, so they took him to Osaka
02:46Castle, maybe, and he met Tokugawa Eisu, and they started talking about all sorts of
02:55things, and he started to give the other perspective, because up until then Tokugawa had only heard
03:01about the outside world from the Portuguese point of view, and of course in their stories
03:08the Portuguese and the Spanish were wonderful, and the English and the Dutch were bad, so
03:12he got to hear a different perspective.
03:14The other thing was, the Portuguese had, what did they have, they had, I wrote it down
03:18because I knew I'd forget it, they had Franciscan monks and they had Jesuits with them, who
03:23were trying to convert the Japanese people to Christianity, and were converting Japanese
03:28people to Christianity, and Tokugawa didn't really like that too much, so he was interested
03:36in the different perspective, because William Adams was a Protestant, and so he wasn't sort
03:42of evangelistic, you know, and so he also had all sorts of knowledge that was interesting
03:48to Eisu, he was very good at mathematics and things like that, so he became, oh the other
03:55thing he did, he built a ship for him, apparently Eisu said to him, I want you to build me one
04:00of those English style ships, like the one you arrived in, or the Dutch one, and Western
04:05style ship, and he said, oh I don't, you know, I'm not a carpenter, you know, and he said
04:09it's alright, do your best, it doesn't matter if it doesn't work, and so he gave him a whole
04:13heap of workers, and they built a ship, that Eisu was really happy with apparently, so
04:19because he built the ship for him, and he was teaching him all these things about the
04:23outside world, and mathematics, and all sorts of things like that, he made him a Samurai,
04:28his name, Samurai William, so pretty interesting story, and what triggered this video was,
04:37recently there's a book released, and I wrote that down, because I knew I'd forget that
04:40too, called In the Service of the Shogun, and from all accounts, it seems to be one
04:47of the most thoroughly researched versions, because the one I read was some time ago,
04:51and it was a good book, I've also seen the transcript of a letter written by William
04:57Adams at the time, back to the people in England, but this new book, this In the Service of
05:04the Shogun, apparently it's been really well researched from people, the information available
05:11from the time, so what was written about this guy by the Japanese, and what was written
05:16about him by the Portuguese, and what was written about him by the other Dutch people
05:20that were with him, and just the contemporary sources, so it seems to be really well researched
05:27and really well written, and it's had some really really good reviews, so I thought you
05:32guys might be interested in that. I've still got, somewhere, I've still got that old version,
05:38the Samurai William book, which is a pretty good book too. So, there's, what I've mentioned
05:44so far is the Shogun book, by James Clavell, the mini-series, which is on DVD now, then
05:53the Samurai William book, and then also the latest book, which is In the Service of the
05:57Shogun. So, all of them are interesting, all of them are interesting, for you guys
06:02who are interested in Japan, they're all interesting. I found the Samurai William book really interesting,
06:07because it's non-fiction, you know, so when you're reading it, it's like, wow, this stuff's
06:13real, you know, it's amazing, and you can sort of relate to it too, you know, a foreigner
06:18comes to Japan, you know, some of you guys that have been here, or are here already,
06:23you know, a lot of that, a foreigner comes to Japan, and what the experience is like
06:27is sort of interesting, you know, because we've experienced that for ourselves. So,
06:31all of those things, I'll put it on our Amazon page, so there'll be a link underneath this
06:35video, if you're interested in looking at any of those, you know, the bottom of our
06:38Amazon page, makes it easy to find. Alright, so, highly recommend it, just amazing, just
06:46amazing story, you know, and apparently because Samurai, because the William Adams impressed
06:53him so much, that allowed, or encouraged, to allow the Dutch to come and trade, and
06:59of course, at the time, the Dutch East Indies Company was all through Asia, and from Asia
07:05right back to Europe, so it allowed them to get their foot in the door as well, and I
07:10end up being, at the end, when they closed the doors, I think the Dutch East India Company,
07:16they were given an island off Nagasaki, and when Japan was closed to foreigners, those
07:21guys were still allowed to trade, there was all sorts of rules, they weren't allowed to
07:27talk with the Japanese people, and the Japanese people weren't allowed to talk to them, and
07:30there was all sorts of rules to stop them infecting the population with their Western
07:35thinking, but they were allowed to keep trading, so William Adams really changed the connection
07:44between Japan and the rest of the world, so it's a fascinating story, really fascinating,
07:48and of course, 1600, it was only 400 years ago, so it's relevant, so anyway, that's more
07:56than enough of that, check it out for yourself, from some qualified historians, some skilled
08:02historians, it's hot, hot and steamy, anyway, that's enough of that, more videos coming soon!
08:18Thanks for watching!