imoko

This resolve found practical expression in the year 607, when the omi Imoko was sent as envoy to the Sui Court, a Chinese of the Saddlers' Corporation, by name Fukuri, being attached to him in the capacity of interpreter. China received these men hospitably and sent an envoy of her own, with a suite of twelve persons, to the Yamato sovereign in the following year.

F. (Frank) Brinkley - A History of the Japanese People : From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era

Imoko was now accompanied by eight students four of literature and four of religion. Thus was established, and for long afterwards maintained, a bridge over which the literature, arts, ethics, and philosophies of China were copiously imported into Japan. *In this despatch Japan called herself "the place where the sun comes forth," and designated China as "the place where the sun sets."

F. (Frank) Brinkley - A History of the Japanese People : From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era

When, a month later, the envoy took his departure, the same Imoko was deputed to accompany him, bearing a despatch* in which, to China's simple "greeting," Japan returned a "respectful address;" to China's expression of ineffable superiority Japan replied that the coming of the embassy had "dissolved her long-harboured cares;" and to China's grandiloquent prolixity Japan made answer with half a dozen brief lines.

F. (Frank) Brinkley - A History of the Japanese People : From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era