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* ''Japanese/Chinese:'' 琉球館 ''(Ryuukyuukan / Liuqiu guan)''
* ''Japanese/Chinese:'' 琉球館 ''(Ryuukyuukan / Liuqiu guan)''
''Ryûkyû-kan'' were institutions serving as homes and bases of operations for [[Ryukyuan embassy|Ryukyuan missions]] in early modern [[Fuzhou]] (Fujian province, China) and [[Kagoshima]] ([[Satsuma province]], Japan).
The ''Ryûkyû-kan'' were a pair of institutions, one located in early modern [[Fuzhou]] and one in [[Kagoshima]], which served as pseudo-embassies, providing bases of operations for official Sino-Ryûkyû and [[Satsuma han|Satsuma]]-Ryûkyû business, as well as lodging for Ryukyuan students and officials.
==Kagoshima==
==Kagoshima==
The ''Ryûkyû-kan'' in Kagoshima was located below the castle, on the site occupied today by Nagata Middle School and governmental food provisions offices.
The Ryûkyû-kan in Kagoshima was located below the castle, on the site occupied today by Nagata Middle School and governmental food provisions offices.
It played a central role in relations between the [[Kingdom of Ryukyu|Kingdom of Ryûkyû]] and the ''[[han]]'' to which it was a vassal, serving a function not unlike a modern-day embassy. Visiting dignitaries lived and worked in the ''Ryûkyû-kan'', as did students studying classic subjects in preparation for careers in the kingdom's bureaucracy, and a number of Ryukyuan permanent residents of the city. Satsuma's control over the Ryukyuan officials was tight, however; wandering or loitering in the area around the building was forbidden, and guards posted at the entrance checked visitors in and out<ref>Sakai. p401.</ref>. Ryukyuans could travel around the city, and to other parts of the country, only on official business, and under tight supervision and strict regulations. Similarly strict policies applied to Japanese visiting the institution.
It played a central role in relations between the [[Kingdom of Ryukyu|Kingdom of Ryûkyû]] and the ''[[han]]'' to which it was a vassal, serving a function not unlike a modern-day embassy. Visiting dignitaries lived and worked in the ''Ryûkyû-kan'' for various lengths of time, as did students studying classic subjects in preparation for careers in the kingdom's bureaucracy, and a number of Ryukyuan permanent residents of the city. The chief Ryukyuan official permanently resident at the Ryûkyû-kan was the ''zaiban oyakata'' ("resident elder"); he and a samurai official known as the ''Ryûkyû-kikiyaku'' (lit. "listener"), were collectively known as the ''[[Ryukyu-gakari|Ryûkyû-gakari]]'', and were charged with overseeing the residents and operations of the Ryûkyû-kan, as well as performing various administrative duties related to communicating [[Satsuma han]] edicts and the like to Ryûkyû.
A number of Ryukyuan students and officials were resident at the Ryûkyû-kan on a semi-permanent basis. In addition, a delegation of roughly twenty officials visited the city each year to perform "''sankin''," paying formal respects to the Satsuma daimyô, on behalf of the King of Ryûkyû. As with the ''[[sankin kotai|sankin kôtai]]'' missions performed by the daimyô, to pay respects to the shogun in [[Edo]], here too there was a connotation of this delegation, as well as the permanently resident officials, serving as political hostages. Additional missions were sent from Ryûkyû on occasions such as congratulating the daimyô on receiving certain titles and honors, or on becoming daimyô, as well as for expressing gratitude for the daimyô's recognition of a new king on the Ryukyuan throne, or for other favors granted by the daimyô to the kingdom. It was also customary for Ryukyuan Crown Princes to pay an official visit to Kagoshima upon turning fifteen years old, but the king himself was not typically obligated to journey to Kagoshima himself.
Satsuma's control over the Ryukyuan officials was tight, however; wandering or loitering in the area around the building was forbidden, and guards posted at the entrance checked visitors in and out<ref>Sakai. p401.</ref>. As with the [[zaiban (Ryukyu)|Japanese officials resident in Ryûkyû]], Ryukyuans resident in Kagoshima could interact with Japanese, travel around the city, and to other parts of the country, only on official business, and under tight supervision and strict regulations. Similarly strict policies applied to Japanese visiting the institution; they were forbidden from entering the building without official permission, as well as from loitering nearby or communicating with Ryukyuan individuals about anything other than official business. Further, all in-person interactions between Ryukyuan and Japanese individuals had to be conducted through an official interpreter - this despite the fact that many, if not most, Ryukyuan scholar-bureaucrats were competent in the Japanese language.
However, this is not to say that social calls and cultural interactions between Ryukyuans and Japanese did not occur; they simply had to be requested and approved in writing ahead of time. Writings by traveling scholars such as [[Tachibana Nankei]] who visited Satsuma in the early 1780s relate meetings with Ryukyuan students in which they drank together, exchanged poetry, and shared songs. For those few Japanese from other provinces who were able to visit Kagoshima (given the tight border controls enforced by most Satsuma daimyô, with the notable exception of daimyô [[Shimazu Shigehide]], r. [[1755]]-[[1787]]), there was also the potential for the opportunity to witness Ryukyuan processions or the like in the city, outside of the Ryûkyû-kan.
==Fuzhou==
==Fuzhou==
*"[http://kyotoreview.cseas.kyoto-u.ac.jp/issue/issue2/index.html The Rekidai Hoan: An Introduction to Documents of the Ryukyu Kingdom]." Editorial Office of Rekidai Hoan, Okinawa Archives, Okinawa Prefectural Board of Education (trans.). ''Kyoto Review of Southeast Asia'' 3 (March 2003). 15 pages.
*"[http://kyotoreview.cseas.kyoto-u.ac.jp/issue/issue2/index.html The Rekidai Hoan: An Introduction to Documents of the Ryukyu Kingdom]." Editorial Office of Rekidai Hoan, Okinawa Archives, Okinawa Prefectural Board of Education (trans.). ''Kyoto Review of Southeast Asia'' 3 (March 2003). 15 pages.
*[[Robert Sakai|Sakai, Robert K.]] "The Satsuma-Ryukyu Trade and the Tokugawa Seclusion Policy." ''Journal of Asian Studies''. 23:3 (May 1964). pp391-403.
*[[Robert Sakai|Sakai, Robert K.]] "The Satsuma-Ryukyu Trade and the Tokugawa Seclusion Policy." ''Journal of Asian Studies''. 23:3 (May 1964). pp391-403.
*Sakai, Robert K., “The Ryukyu (Liu-ch’iu) Islands as a Fief of Satsuma,” in [[John K. Fairbank]], ''The Chinese World Order'', Harvard University Press (1968), 112-134.
*『薩摩と琉球』。鹿児島県の県立図書館。("Satsuma and Ryukyu." Kagoshima Prefectural Library Official Site.) [http://www.pref.kagoshima.jp/kentosho/shiryo/kityou-490.html http://www.pref.kagoshima.jp/kentosho/shiryo/kityou-490.html] Accessed 10 October 2007. (Source in Japanese.)
*『薩摩と琉球』。鹿児島県の県立図書館。("Satsuma and Ryukyu." Kagoshima Prefectural Library Official Site.) [http://www.pref.kagoshima.jp/kentosho/shiryo/kityou-490.html http://www.pref.kagoshima.jp/kentosho/shiryo/kityou-490.html] Accessed 10 October 2007. (Source in Japanese.)
*Watanabe Miki. "[http://www.geocities.jp/ryukyu_history/Japan_Ryukyu/Main.html ''Nihon ni okeru Ryûkyû shiseki''] 日本における琉球史跡." (personal webpage).
*Watanabe Miki. "[http://www.geocities.jp/ryukyu_history/Japan_Ryukyu/Main.html ''Nihon ni okeru Ryûkyû shiseki''] 日本における琉球史跡." (personal webpage).
