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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Graf" data-source="post: 399077" data-attributes="member: 3087">[embarrising edit: the Tokugawa period started in 1600s not the 1500s. Completely wasn't paying attention when I was typing.]I'm curious about this. Its the first time I've heard it. Could you supply more info? I've heard a lot about Perry and his black ships but nothing involving shipwrecked sailors. (The reason why I'm curious is that lacking contact with the West in any form I don't know how the US, or anybody else, would know that their sailors had wound up on Japan and then been exicuted).I would suggest that the Japanese aversion to having contact with Westerners during the "closed country period" was not racism.Interesting fact: The appearance of missionaries in southern Japan around 1600 triggered massive conversions among the poor and lots of rioting. This led to a lot of Crucifitions in 1615 and ultimtately to the idea that  western religous ideas were dangerous and the closing of the country once the last suriving general Tokugawa managed to solidify his control.Every year during the annual census each member of Japanese society was made to trek to their local temple where they were registered. Each temple had a picture of Jesus on the floor. Everyone was made to stand on the tile and recite a set phrase affirming that they were not a Christian and that by standing Jesus' face they affirmed this.Anybody who was discovered to be  a Christan was put to the death.Despite this there were still enclaves of Christians dwellling in secret in Japan when the country was opened hundreds of years later. Though many had very different rituals because the tradition had been carried down orally for years and changed over time.Personally I tend to see the government's reaction against western religious views including the Crucifictions of thousands of (japanese) Christans and the later illligalization of Christianity as being a situtaion of elites attempting to clamp down on "subversive" ideas. Similar in some ways to the responce to Communism in the US during the middle of the last century (i.e. 1900s) if you're looking for a modern correlary.I realize this is probably a bit too historic for most games (including my own) but there are some nuances which are good to grasp.[edit: link about a Christian rebellion:<a href="http://www.baobab.or.jp/~stranger/mypage/hara.htm" target="_blank">http://www.baobab.or.jp/~stranger/mypage/hara.htm</a>and another one about religion in Nagasaki during and before the Tokugawaperiod :<a href="http://www.nagasaki-gaigo.ac.jp/nagasaki/5.html" target="_blank">http://www.nagasaki-gaigo.ac.jp/nagasaki/5.html</a></blockquote>

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