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Under the [[kaikin|maritime restrictions]] imposed by the [[Tokugawa shogunate]] in the 1630s, which would remain in force until the [[Bakumatsu Period]] (1850s), the only foreigners permitted to trade at the port of [[Nagasaki]] were the [[Dutch East India Company|Dutch]] and the Chinese.<ref>These were not particularly strict definitions; other Europeans did come to [[Dejima]] with the Dutch, and a small number of people from other parts of Asia were included alongside the Chinese in the umbrella category of ''[[Tojin|Tôjin]]''.</ref> The volume of trade handled by the Chinese far exceeded that of the Dutch, however. [[Oba Osamu|Ôba Osamu]] has written that "Nagasaki trade was China trade," arguing for the importance of recognizing Nagasaki's place as the northernmost and easternmost point within larger, complex networks of Chinese trade, rather than (or in addition to) the Japanese perspective, in which Nagasaki is a lone exception to an archipelago of ports closed to foreign trade.<ref>[[Marius Jansen]], ''China in the Tokugawa World'', Harvard University Press (1992), 23.</ref>
Prior to the imposition of maritime restrictions, Chinese lived among the Japanese community in a number of places throughout Kyushu, including [[Miyakonojo|Miyakonojô]], [[Usuki]], [[Funai]], [[Kumamoto]], [[Ikura (Higo)|Ikura]], [[Hakata]], [[Kokura]], [[Shimabara]], [[Hirado]], the [[Goto Islands|Gotô Islands]], and various places in [[Satsuma province|Satsuma]] and [[Osumi province|Ôsumi provinces]], as well as in [[Yamaguchi]] (western Honshû), [[Matsuyama]] (Shikoku), and [[Odawara]] and [[Kawagoe]] (in the [[Kanto|Kantô]], near [[Edo]]). Chinese had traded and settled in the Nagasaki area since at least [[1562]], a phenomenon which increased after the formal establishment of Nagasaki as a city in [[1572]].<ref>Arano Yasunori. "The Formation of a Japanocentric World Order." ''International Journal of Asian Studies'' 2:2 (2005), 194.</ref>
[[File:Tojinyashiki.jpg|center|800px|thumb|Scenes in the Chinese settlement, Nagasaki. A handscroll on display at the British Museum.]]
[[File:Tojinyashiki.jpg|center|800px|thumb|Scenes in the Chinese settlement, Nagasaki. A handscroll on display at the British Museum.]]
There were essentially two categories of Chinese resident in Nagasaki in the [[Edo Period]]. Those who were seen as being aligned with China, chiefly including merchants who were based in China and came to Nagasaki primarily, or solely, to engage in trade, were restricted to a district known as the ''[[Tojin yashiki|Tôjin yashiki]]'', or "Chinese mansions," but were, like the Dutch, who were similarly confined to Dejima, allowed to leave Japan and to come back. Though initially permitted to travel more freely and to live in the regular Japanese sections of the town, these Chinese merchants were restricted to the ''Tôjin yashiki'' beginning in [[1689]] as a response to rises in smuggling.<ref>Mizuno Norihito, “China in Tokugawa Foreign Relations: The Tokugawa Bakufu’s Perception of and Attitudes toward Ming-Qing China,” ''Sino-Japanese Studies'' 15 (2003), 140n181.</ref> Most of those who lived in the district lived there only temporarily, or seasonally, as they were merchants or crewmen otherwise who came and went with the trading vessels. However, the community also included some number of physicians, veterinarians, scholars and the like. Roughly 130 members of the community were influential in Japan as painters.<ref>Jansen, 60.</ref>
There were essentially two categories of Chinese resident in Nagasaki in the [[Edo Period]]. Those who were seen as being aligned with China, chiefly including merchants who were based in China and came to Nagasaki primarily, or solely, to engage in trade, were restricted to a district known as the ''[[Tojin yashiki|Tôjin yashiki]]'', or "Chinese mansions," but were, like the Dutch, who were similarly confined to Dejima, allowed to leave Japan and to come back. Though initially permitted to travel more freely and to live in the regular Japanese sections of the town, these Chinese merchants were restricted to the ''Tôjin yashiki'' beginning in [[1689]] as a response to rises in smuggling.<ref>Mizuno Norihito, “China in Tokugawa Foreign Relations: The Tokugawa Bakufu’s Perception of and Attitudes toward Ming-Qing China,” ''Sino-Japanese Studies'' 15 (2003), 140n181.</ref> Most of those who lived in the district lived there only temporarily, or seasonally, as they were merchants or crewmen otherwise who came and went with the trading vessels. However, the community also included some number of physicians, veterinarians, scholars and the like. Roughly 130 members of the community were influential in Japan as painters.<ref>Jansen, 60.</ref>
