Visiting Dejima, the only island where Westerners were allowed in Japan for hundreds of years

Visiting Dejima, the only island where Westerners were allowed in Japan for hundreds of years

Designed to let foreign goods in while keeping foreign ideas out, this Nagasaki neighborhood is one of the most historically significant places in Japan. The feudal government of Japan had a dilemma in the early 1600s. Contact with European traders during the recently ended Sengoku period of civil war had shown just how far behind the West Japan was slipping in terms of science, technology, and commerce in general, so it wanted to continue havin…