China came into contact with the Portuguese in 1517, which started the trading relations with the Europeans. Japan in 1543 began to contact with the European traders. Both of the dynasties considered them a barbarian who lacked manners and uncivilized compared to them. China allowed the Europeans to trade with them but did not allow to come inside the province. Whereas, Japan hesitated to open its ports in the beginning but later opened it because it lacked resources.
Both the Chinese and the Japanese felt that the Europeans were barbarians. They were particularly repelled by the smell of these foreigners who ate much fattier diets and who did not typically wash very often. They also felt the Europeans lacked subtlety and were rather crass in their behaviors.
The similarities, however, largely end there. The Chinese tried to simply ignore the Europeans. They were able to do this to some degree because the Europeans did not have anything they wanted. They were willing to take European silver in exchange for tea and otherwise leave the Europeans alone. This worked until around the time of the Opium Wars when the Europeans forced China to open itself more.
