Several of the documents in this chapter address, directly or indirectly, the construction of gender in East Asian societies. Based on these documents, what conclusions can you draw about how men and women related to one another in early modern China and Japan? How did these relations change, and why?
Compare and contrast the illustration from Anson’s Voyage Round the World (Document 21-1) and Kaempfer’s account of the Dutch presence in Japan (Document 21-2). What common themes are present in both documents?
Both Kaempfer (Document 21-2) and Li (Document 21-5) write about the experience of being in a foreign culture. In Li’s case, the fictional account is designed as a commentary on his own time and place. How might Kaempfer’s writing say as much about his own culture as it does about early modern Japan? In what ways does his writing reflect a European perspective? How might it have been different if written by a Japanese observer?
Li Ju-chen, Flowers in the Mirror, trans. and ed. Lin Tai-yi (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1965), 107–113.