| In the year 1600, a lone foreign ship foundered on the coast of Bungo (present-day Oita Prefecture). This was the "Liefde," and its arrival marked the beginning of a long history of exchange between the Netherlands and Japan. In 1609, the Dutch sent two ships to Japan and received permission from Shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu to establish a factory (trading post) in Hirado in present-day Nagasaki Prefecture. In 1641, the Dutch moved this trading post to Dejima, which had been vacated two years earlier by the Portuguese, and for 218 years thereafter they joined China in monopolizing trade with Japan. Japan severed all contact with the outside world from 1641 to 1859, a period known today as the Period of National Isolation. The port of Nagasaki was the only exception, serving as the site of a trickle of commercial trade with Holland and China. The tiny fan-shaped, manmade island of Dejima (also called "Deshima") was Japan's only point of contact with Europe. The company name and logo refers to the long lasting relation between Japan and The Netherlands that started in Dejima. In the same spirit of cooperation Dejima Optical Films intents to contribute to the success of the LCD industry by the development and manufacturing of high performance Optical Films. |