Place: Seisen University (3-16-21 Higashi Gotanda, Shinagawa-ku, Tokyo 141-8642) (map in Japanese), which is about a ten-minute walk from Gotanda Station. Turn left coming out of the barrier at Gotanda JR station. Take the road forking right, accessible via the footbridge. Keep going until you eventually pass a pizza and pasta restaurant, "To the Herbs." Take the next turning to the left and continue up the hill until you come to the university gateway on the left. The lecture theatre is approached from No. 1 Building behind the Conder House and is on a lower level; the route will be clearly marked. If you take a taxi from the station, insist on "SeiSEN Joshi Daigaku", not "SeiSHIN".
Information: ASJ Office
Of the paper that he will read to the Society this time, Dr. Ishii writes that in the latter half of the 16th century Japan seems to have started sending trading ships to various parts of Southeast Asia. Beginning in the early 17th century, the Tokugawa Shogunate encouraged Goshuin-sen or Vermilion Seal Ships to be dispatched to various ports of Nan Yang, which resulted in the development of Japanese settlements known as Nan'yo Nihonjin-machi in various parts of Southeast Asia. The policy of seclusion was introduced in 1630s, depriving the Japanese of their right to be involved with foreigners. The domestic needs for tropical products were to be filled for the ensuing two hundred years by imports brought by the Dutch East India Company (V.O.C.) and Chinese junk traders. The consumption of tropical products among the Edo populace was always considerable; they had a fondness for socks and aprons made of deer hide which came from Siam and Cambodia, for instance, but the lack of human contact meant that the people had hardly any knowledge of their countries of origin.
Before turning to an academic career Dr. Ishii was a career diplomat with the Japan Ministry of Foreign Affairs from 1955 to 1965. He took his LL.D. at Kyoto University, where he was Professor of Southeast Asian History in the Center for Southeast Asian Studies from 1967 to 1990. His last position there was director of the Center. He was then engaged as a professor in the Institute of Asian Cultures, Sophia University, from 1990 to 1997, and was director of the Institute from 1993. He also served concurrently as director of the Center for East Asian Studies for UNESCO in Tokyo. He is currently President of Kanda University of International Studies. His publications include Sangha, State, and Society: Thai Buddhism in History (1986), A Glossarial Index of the Sukhothai Inscriptions (co-authored, 1989), and The Junk Trade from Southeast Asia: Translations from the Tosen Fusetsugaki, 1674-1723 (1998) . He read a paper to the Society in January 1994 on "Ayutthayan-Japanese Relations in the Pre-modern Period: A Bibliographic Reflection", which was published in Vol.10 of the Transactions, 1995.
Adapted from "The Asiatic Society of Japan Bulletin No. 4", April 2002, compiled by Prof. Hugh E. Wilkinson and Mrs. Doreen Simmons.
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