When Place Names Turn to Doubt The tension that went unheeded by gringo Ranald McDonald during the Kaei years.

When Place Names Turn to Doubt The tension that went unheeded by gringo Ranald McDonald during the Kaei years.

The Kaei Nenkan period was a time when Japan, despite its system of national seclusion, was still experiencing a buildup of unrest within its borders. The arrival of foreign ships was no longer a rarity, and the shogunate was nervous about the influx of ideas as well as military power. The most intense manifestation of this tension was the interrogation at the Nagasaki Magistrate's Office, where a single word could be interpreted as a threat of suspicion.

Ranaldo MacDonald, a foreigner who was present at the interrogation, used a map to explain his route and the place where he was staying. To him, a place name was a place name and meant nothing more than that. However, one sound uttered by his mouth reached the ears of the officials as a different word. This is the moment when the place name pronounced as bakso was received as bateren banren, referring to the forbidden Christian missionaries.

McDonald was a neophyte, and his position and ideology differed from that of the Catholic missionaries. He did not fully understand that the term Battelen Bantenren meant, in Japan, not a religious person but a political danger who would invite rebellion and infighting. In the Western sense, it is hard to imagine that a similarity in sound would immediately lead to ideological suspicion. In Japan during the period of national isolation, however, language was directly linked to ideology, and the agreement of sounds carried a weight similar to that of meaning.

This misunderstanding was not due to anyone's malice. MacDonald spoke unknowingly, the officials responded faithfully to the system, and the tsunrei tried to control their words by sensing the tension of the occasion. What resulted was a scene in which place names were instantly transformed into signs of dangerous ideas. McDonald, a gringo, did not yet know at the time how perceptive a space his words were being thrown into.

This scene has implications beyond his personal experience. In a society that does not have the vocabulary to translate ideas, caution precedes understanding. Only the sound arouses suspicion because the meaning is unknown. McDonald's did not meet its fatal end only because the cogs of the system did not accidentally over-mesh.

In this moment when the name of the place transformed into Bantenren, the distance between Japan and the gaijin just before the end of the Edo period is condensed. The language seems to be understood, but it is not, and the shadows of politics and religion creep in between the gaps. McDonald's silence and the tension between the officials speak quietly of the reality of an era when a language gap could determine one's fate.