In 1619, the shogun Tokugawa Hidetada
was taking a break from his favorite hobby of
persecuting Christians when he saw that his fancy European clock
was broken.
It was a gift from a Christian missionary, when those still were still alive.
The best way to fix it was to find a Christian,
because they were known in Japan for making clocks.
Unfortunately, whenever the shogun’s government found a Christian,
they either deported, arrested, tortured, or killed them,
and that was just the first day.
Japan had a ban on Christianity at the time, you see.
The shogun ordered one lord to find a way to fix the thing.
This particular lord was sympathetic to the Christians,
and suggested they bring some out of jail to do it.
He wanted to give the prisoners a chance to walk free for a bit.
The shogun loved Christians.
Hearing this suggestion, the shogun lovingly
burst a blood vessel and demanded to know
why there were still mfing Christians in his mfing city.
Then he ordered those clocksuckers to be burned alive,
so they could have a chance to build clocks for God.
Very thoughtful of him.
Many in Japan at the time didn’t care much for Christians,
but they couldn’t get enough of Christian clocks.
Funny thing was, the Japanese couldn’t even use these things,
the reason why will surprise you.
But first, how did European clocks become so popular in Japan?
Well in the year of our Lord Nobunaga 1549,
a Jesuit named Francis Xavier arrived in Japan.
The Jesuits are an arm of the Catholic Church
that reaches around the world doing missionary work,
stimulating the locals with knowledge,
teaching people about the wonders of the world
then mentioning that those wonders are made by God, you understand??
In 1551, Francis Xavier met with the lord of Suo Province
to ask for permission to preach in his lands.
The wheels of diplomacy are greased with gifts,
so Xavier greased him with a bunch of items,
including a Western mechanical clock,
kicking off the mechanical clock revolution in Japan.
It was a beautiful, skillfully made clock,
a marvel of European ingenuity and art--
okay we don’t know what it looked like.
None of these Jesuit clocks have survived history.
But the lord was impressed and allowed the Jesuits to preach.
That’s a nice clock, God must be alright.
Xavier said, “Jesus Christ.
That worked really well.”
And ran to his Jesuit buddies all excited that he found a cheat code to Heaven.
Just show them your big clock and they’ll open their doors for you.
Thus began the Jesuit strategy of clock diplomacy.
One Jesuit decided to max out his points in clock diplomacy.
He was a Portuguese named Luis Frois.
He wanted to make a new friend, a friend named Oda Nobunaga,
the first Great Unifier of Japan.
All good friendships start with careful preparation and strategy.
Frois showed a small striking clock to a samurai named Wada Koremasa 和田惟政,
who was a big supporter of Christian missionaries.
When Koremasa described the clock to Nobunaga,
the warlord seemed super interested, so Koremasa
set up a meeting between the two in 1569.
This was huge because the Jesuits were walking
on thin ice at the time, with samurai swimming underneath.
Just a few years before, they were banned from Kyoto
and it was Nobunaga who recently lifted the ban.
Luis Frois wanted to slip a Jesuit foot back
inside the doors of Japan’s elites,
by waving fancy gifts before their eyes to distract them.
It was an important meeting, but Frois knew he could get on Nobunaga’s good side,
he had a lot of time on his hands.
He taught Nobunaga how to read the clock and adjust it,
then they spent 2 hours talking excitedly about
mechanical devices, the wonders of Europe,
and how to subjugate native peoples.
Nobunaga ended up politely refusing the gift though,
saying he wanted it but it would have been wasted on him.
But he thought Frois was pretty cool, and allowed the priest
to stay at his personal home for a while.
Nobunaga remained friendly to the Jesuit missionaries
in his territory, and Frois always had nice
things to say about the warlord.
Now that Lord Wada Koremasa was the actual MVP okay,
because this Chad Katanacock booked another meeting for Frois.
The shogun Ashikaga Yoshiaki refused to speak
to Frois because a few lords said some nasty
words about the priest in the shogun’s DMs.
Koremasa convinced the shogun to meet with Frois, and Frois again flaunted his clock,
which gave the shogun much pleasure, but he also refused the gift.
We don’t know why the shogun and Oda Nobunaga
turned down the gift, maybe they didn’t
want to owe Frois a favor.
Koremasa understood the power of clocks.
He once invited a bunch of lords and nobles
to come see this small Western striking clock,
at a church.
When the crowd arrived, they got to experience
the clock and the word of God,
both telling them that time was running out.
And these were just the small clocks.
In 1584, the Jesuits invited a few Japanese nobles over for a tour of Europe.
They rode through Portugal, Spain, and Italy.
It was an authentic look into how
wealthy and magnificent European cities were
when you hid the homeless and hookers.
It was a tightly controlled tour, is what I’m saying.
Like when a guest is coming over and you clean up all the dirty toys and poverty.
Clocks played a big part in the tour.
The Jesuits took the group to see some big public clocks, including one that belonged
to a guy named St Mark in Venice.
One of the Japanese said,
“the invention of this clock should rank as one of those
most worthy of admiration.”
Jesuits were known to be respectful and not aggressive in preaching their religion.
During the trip, they didn’t even mention that these clocks were only possible due to
knowledge from the Church more than twice a day.
These devices were special, they measured time and also Catholic power.
By all accounts, the Japanese guests
were impressed by the clocks that they saw out West.
Now with all this talk of gifting clocks,
you may be shocked, pull off your socks,
to hear that the Japanese couldn’t even use these time boxes.
They were clockblocked because they kept time differently from the foreigners.
The Westerners split the day into 24 hours, equally.
The Japanese split the day into 12 hours: 6 for daytime, 6 for night.
But these hours were not equal.
Daytime, the time from dawn to dusk, is usually longer than nighttime.
So a day hour was usually longer than a night hour.
Not only that, the length of an hour changes throughout the year.
Summer nights are shorter than winter nights,
that’s why it’s best to rob houses in the winter.
Now to us, Japan’s timekeeping system seems awkward and unreliable.
Were people always changing their schedules and constantly late?
Actually, they kinda were late to everything,
at least that was the complaint of the Europeans who visited,
but that was because the Europeans had mechanical clocks.
The Japanese didn’t have such a precise relationship with time.
To the Japanese, the European system was unreliable.
One dude was shocked, exclaiming,
“sometimes dawn is in the fifth hour, sometimes in the sixth.”
Then he ran and jumped off a bridge.
That was uncalled for.
Kind of an overreaction if you ask me.
Just kidding, he didn’t.
But he was surprised.
Japan couldn’t use Western clocks with their 24 weirdly equal hours.
In Japan, the hours went from 9 to 4, then 9 to 4 once more.
The beginning and end of the day
were always at the 6th hour:
the 6th of dawn and the 6th of dusk.
The hours were supposed to align with the day-night cycle.
This view of time was etched into Japanese brains from childhood.
Having dawn appear at different hours was super weird.
So then why did they want these clocks so much?
In 1591, after the Japanese nobles returned
from that tour of Europe,
they held a huge parade where they gave gifts
to a bloke named Toyotomi Hideyoshi,
including a nice clock.
Hideyoshi had just eliminated the last major
threat to his unification of Japan,
and the foreigners congratulated him on his conquest.
It was a nice photo op.
The foreign recognition was the cherry-on-top to his cake of legitimacy.
Look at how people around the world pay me respect!
Hideyoshi was pleased with the whole thing.
Clocks made for great status symbols, and greater gifts.
Japan had a strong gift culture.
Society ran on it.
If you wanted an audience with a lord,
you usually kicked things off by sending him presents.
If not, how would he know that you wanted to talk?
Accepting a gift also meant you were expected to return the favor in some way.
Elite households had all sorts of bits and bobs arriving almost daily.
Ah another Amazon gift card from cousin Joebunaga.
I think he wants to marry my daughter.
People gifted and regifted, forming an interstate
highway system of presents, and clocks moved
through it like Bugattis.
People drooled over them.
One such drooler was the shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu.
An eyewitness wrote that when Ieyasu saw
one nice iron clock,
“he feasted his eyes on it with so much pleasure
that he was quite insatiable.”
He kept an eye out for cool timepieces.
No Jesuit mechanical clocks survived history,
but we do still have 2 that belonged to this clock lover.
Ieyasu once sent men to rescue the crew of a Spanish ship that wrecked in Japan.
Afterwards, the King of Spain asked him what he wanted as thank-you gifts.
And he said, “I want a clock, my precious.”
Among other things.
The King sent him this spring loaded clock,
which he loved and kept in his room,
and talked to,
in two different voices,
it was kinda weird.
His other clock that survived, I couldn’t find a picture of.
But it had the shape of a bear,
and moved its eyes and lips when it rang.
Peak technology.
The Jesuits built a workshop to teach the
Japanese how to create clocks and other mechanical things.
And in the early 1600s, there were a bunch
of Japanese artisans who could earn a living
off of clockmaking.
In 1614, the Jesuits were getting annoying, so Japan banned Christianity.
Christian haters ranted about Catholic priests
seducing the people with their evil sorcery,
sorcery that included, one person said,
"setting up clocks that automatically rang
a little bell to announce the time.
Some Japanese purposefully went around greeting people by saying,
“As-salamu alaykum, peace be upon you,”
which annoyed the Christians to no end.
When you get killed, you can’t teach people how to build clocks.
The ban was the end of the Jesuit workshop and their clock diplomacy,
but it was only the beginning of Japanese clockmaking.
The Japanese continued making clocks,
and actually invented clever ways
to make them work with the Japanese time system,
tracking the changing hours throughout the year.
We can talk about these clocks at another time.
The Japanese can make some pretty neat things when they put their minds to it.
Like the best toilets in the world.
Click here to see the history of Japanese toilets
from the s--tty toilets of ancient times
to the ass paradises of right now.
Okay we have some new patrons this week:
Dory Cuzynot, and FermentedShrimpPaste
not a fan of that, but you do you sir.
Alright I love you, and spread the knowledge.