The Japanese were dumbstruck when the Dutch showed them machinery. They had been handpicking rice and painting lewd pictures of octopi up until that point.
As is, for that matter, lewd octopus drawings, which date only to the 19th century.
Most famous example from 1814 (NSFW): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dream_of_the_Fisherman's_Wife
Although I bet that for a popular artist to be able to publish this openly, it probably means it was already floating in the culture before. The article mentions earlier netsuke, but without dates and the sources are books.
Fried fish was introduced to England by the resident Jewish population in London, along with fried chips. They had migrated to England from the Netherlands, and Portugal/Spain before that.
Oh, I just read a book called 1632 that touched on this. If I recall the term for them was Sephardic Jews, and due to prejudice large portions of them moved around until settling in England because the monarchy at the time promised protection. They still weren’t allowed real positions of power, but did fill many roles as financial advisers.
Of course the book was published 25 years ago, so some of that information may be outdated.
Historically yes, but in the 19th and early 20th century, Japan expanded significantly, while China shrunk. China was still bigger, but Japan had 'gained' more imperial territory, if that makes sense.