Closed encounters of the Japanese kind

FROM 1639–1853, returning Japanese nationals were not quarantined, they were executed. No westerners could set foot on Japanese soil, except for a few Dutch traders confined to a tiny island in Nagasaki Bay, where the locals would bribe their way into a viewing of these rewardingly freakish foreigners.

Western influences were as unwanted as the people. Above all, there was the fear of Catholic missionaries getting into the country with their alien ideas and imagery. Paintings of the Crucifixion and the Virgin Mary were hidden behind lacquered panels in the hope that the religious police would think they were objects of indigenous belief.

Less well known is the extent