The relationship between Japan and Netherland?

Question:

Why has their relationship always been so strong? They have created tv-cartoon series together, they have a huge flow of Japanese stright into the heart of netherlands, everytime I land on the KLM international airport, they have so many networks together, why why?

Answer:

Easy. The Dutch were big traders a couple hundred years ago. They traveled the world, and one of the places they went to was Japan. Very few others went to Japan at the time, however the Portuguese did too.

Japan had a period where they felt that contact with non-Japanese was ruining their country, so they closed the country to all foreigners except the Dutch. They were preferred because the Portuguese brought missionaries with them. Christianity was seen as a germ in Japanese society by the rulers of Japan. So, of the two foreign groups that had relations with Japan, only the Dutch got to stay, and it was very limited, to a small island near Nagasaki.

Japan got all of its news of the Western world through the Dutch, and also completely revised their medical system by learning about Western medical practices through books from the Dutch. Because of this, even today there are words, especially in medicine, derived from Dutch in Japanese.