Dejima Dejima

Let's find out more! Dejima

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  1820s model "Mini Dejima"

  The plants and digimanoki brought back by Siebold

  A model of Dejima scaled down to 15/1th is installed in the place where Siebold created his medicinal herb garden. The Dejima currently being restored is modeled after the Dejima of the 1820s, just like this model.
  Today, the plants that Siebold brought back to the Netherlands have returned home and are now thriving in the medicinal herb garden, so take a close look. In addition, next to the main building of the Dejima Archives, there is the "Digimanoki", an evergreen tree of the Araucaceae family that grows wild on the islands of Southeast Asia, and is the only one in Japan that can only be found on Dejima. Since this tree is not depicted in Keiga Kawahara's picture of Dejima, it is said to have been brought from Batavia, Indonesia (present-day Jakarta) and planted at the end of the Edo period. The children who did this are also thriving at the medicinal herb garden site.

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  Prefecturally designated natural monument: Digimanoki

  The plants and digimanoki brought back by Siebold

  A model of Dejima scaled down to 15/1th is installed in the place where Siebold created his medicinal herb garden. The Dejima currently being restored is modeled after the Dejima of the 1820s, just like this model.
  Today, the plants that Siebold brought back to the Netherlands have returned home and are now thriving in the medicinal herb garden, so take a close look. In addition, next to the main building of the Dejima Archives, there is the "Digimanoki", an evergreen tree of the Araucaceae family that grows wild on the islands of Southeast Asia, and is the only one in Japan that can only be found on Dejima. Since this tree is not depicted in Keiga Kawahara's picture of Dejima, it is said to have been brought from Batavia, Indonesia (present-day Jakarta) and planted at the end of the Edo period. The children who did this are also thriving at the medicinal herb garden site.

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  Pay attention to the small bed! Ichiban boatman's room

  The first boat captain's room, located right next to the Dejima tram stop, was the room where the captain of a Dutch ship stayed during his trading days. Inside, furniture brought from the Netherlands and Batavia (present-day Jakarta) and the captain's daily necessities are on display, but please pay attention to the bed on display on the second floor. It's a very small bed for a Dutch person, who has a large body. There are two theories for this, one is that they slept small on their sides to prevent attacks, or that they slept curled up due to the cold, a custom from the Netherlands.

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  Life in Dejima: Dutch people and prostitutes

  The only women allowed in and out of Dejima were prostitutes from Maruyama and Yoriai who called themselves ``bound for the Netherlands.'' These prostitutes who crossed the bridge at Dejima were of a lower rank than the prostitutes who went to the Toukan mansion (prostitutes going to Toujin mansions), but after Isaac Titsung, the head of the trading house, invited prostitutes of Tayu rank (higher rank). It is said that prostitutes of Tayu-kaku status began to come and go.
  When we think of a romance between a Dutch man and a courtesan, Siebold and Sonogi (Taki Kusumoto) immediately come to mind, but Siebold actually went to Nagasaki to make house calls and treat civilians, so it was actually Otaki. There seems to be a theory that she was not a prostitute and that the two met outside of Dejima.

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  “Dejima” connects the world and Japan

  One of Dejima Trading's representative imported products is sugar. Billiards and badminton were the games played by the Dutch people living on Dejima and were introduced to Japan. Then, when Shogun Yoshimune lifted the ban on Western studies and Dutch studies became a boom, people with aspirations to learn from Dutch scholars such as Siebold gathered, and Nagasaki became a place to absorb new knowledge.
  Also, the Dutch words for glasses, cameras, lenses, etc. that we use on a daily basis came through Dejima. Elephants, camels, tigers...Many animals have migrated to Hodejima, which is known as Dejima Zoo, and have spread all over the country. These were drawn by Keiga Kawahara, Siebold's personal illustrator.
  He also traveled to Edo and spread Japanese culture to the world with a huge number of paintings.