History Channel: The Japanese Knights

[The Lawspeaker]

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Program about the history of the Japanese Samurai.

[Jarl]

Still, wouldn't call them knights tho...

[The Lawspeaker]

Well. I must say that they had a chivalrous code of honor. The Samurai were a very interesting noble class and the Japanese are a very interesting civilization.

[Jarl]

Well. I must say that they had a chivalrous code of honor. The Samurai were a very interesting noble class and the Japanese are a very interesting civilization.

...it only became somewhat degenerate in the last few centuries. Or Europe was increasingly degenerate for them. Very un-European civilisation anyway.

[The Lawspeaker]

Agreed. But interesting enough. All the more interesting because traces of their past can be found throughout modern Japanese society... in the same way as traces of our own history can be found throughout our own societies.

From the 16th/17th century onward contacts between the Japanese and Europeans were established. First by the Portuguese - who were kicked out and then by the Dutch. The Dutch, for some centuries, were the only European power that was allowed to conduct trade with the Japanese and the East Indies Company even held a man-made island off Nagasaki Bay ("Deijima"- Dutch: Deshima- Japanese: 出島 -literary meaning "protruding island" ). So in essence Japan is still part of at least Dutch history.

Although (which I find to be pretty insulting in this typical American documentary) the Dutch East Indies Company is not even being mentioned.