Samurai William

William Adams is probably best known to modern audiences as the model for John Blackthorne in the 1980's TV miniseries Shogun, or James Clavell's book of the same name. In Samurai William Giles Milton takes us behind the scenes of the fictional account to show that truth is not only stranger than fiction, but even more entertaining. He serves up a heady brew distilled from the letters and journals of William Adams and the men of the first English trading company in Japan in the early 1600s.

The book is somewhat misnamed. William Adams is a central character and historically the key character in opening Japan to English trade. But Adams doesn't even appear until page 51, and then the focus of the story shifts away from him by page 122. Maybe the source material doesn't exist, but I would have loved to know more about Adams's life, how he learned Japanese and Japanese customs, what he wrote in his journals after he became a samurai, a bigamist and was granted an estate in Hemi (now Yokosuka City) on the Miura peninsula. What Milton provides instead is a history of the English factory (trade mission) in Japan.

Overall though, it's fun reading and there are a lot of good quotes from the source material and illustrations from various manuscripts of the time. An annotated list of source material is included as an appendix. I'm sure glad I wasn't a sailor in the 1600s.

"'All the houses of the nobles and gentry have bathrooms for guests,' noted Rodrigues. 'These places are very clean and are provided with hot and cold water, because it is a general custom in Japan to wash the body at least once or twice a day.' The Japanese were uninhibited by nudity; they stripped naked in their public baths 'and do not worry at all if their privy parts are seen.' First they washed themselves in running water. Then they slipped into huge baths and languished in the naturally heated pool. When Cocks and his team tried this strange custom, they were surprised to find it much to their liking." --pp 197-198

"Drunkenness--the men discovered--was a way of life in Japan. Many Japanese saw nothing wrong in drinking themselves into oblivion and would continue their revelries until there was no one left standing. It was one of the few Japanese customs that was eagerly adopted by the English and the only one at which they truly excelled." --pp 206-207

Elsewhere

* Anjin Miura monument (anjinzuka)
* Tsukayama Prefectural Park

Posted by M Sinclair Stevens
September 03, 2003

Comments

That's funny, I'm halfway through reading this at the moment. I am a little disappointed it's not got more about him though; I was hoping for the 'real' story behind Shogun! But I agree, it's a fun read.

Comment by: Lisa. Posted September 9, 2003 08:16 PM.

Oh, nice Blog! Greetings from Italy! Ciao!

Comment by: Daniela. Posted September 24, 2003 05:52 AM.

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