A reflection on cultural interaction through European-Chinese relations in seventeenth-century Hirado: gift-giving in a context of Blurred borders between social relations, trade and smuggling

This article offers a critical perspective on practices of intercultural gift-giving and their role in maintaining social relations in seventeenth-century Japan, focusing on the coastal town of Hirado as microcosm of cultural interaction. Through an analysis of fragments from English travel diaries kept during a 10-year period, it reveals how aspects of gift-giving, trade and smuggling intertwined in the creation of identities on an empirical level, in a context of interaction between Europeans, Chinese and Japanese communities. Taking an anthropological perspective towards Chinese-English interaction, it points towards a certain ambiguity of exchange consisting of opposing tendencies and blurred categories, as relations of loyalty or friendship and fraudulent behavior co-existed within established Japanese customs of giving. This opens possibilities for a critique, revealing blurred conceptual borders, challenging common historical identities and their explanations, and urging us to re-conceptualize such exchanges as processual dynamics, while remaining focused on concrete examples demonstrating the opposing tendencies and motivations of exchange on a local scale in the maritime environment of seventeenth-century Hirado