18-Jan-2023
"Take a stroll through Nagasaki's hilly landscape and let the city tell you a story," says the Visit Kyushu website. And what a story it is...
In 1571, Portuguese ships, which had already been buzzing around other Japanese ports, reached Nagasaki. The Portuguese brought tempura and castella (a yummy, spongey cake, which the Japanese customized by adding mizuame, a local syrup, which gives the cake its nice chewy texture). The trouble is that the Portuguese (and others) were insisting on bringing their religion too, and that didn't go down well. At all.
Castella (cheaper, and just as tasty, if you buy offcuts...)
Built in 1864, Oura Cathedral is Japan's oldest Catholic church, and is dedicated to the 26 Christians who were executed in February 1597
The Shogunate, as part of a comprehensive "national seclusion edict", decided to limit pesky foreigners to a very specific area, and from 1634-36, the Japanese worked on the construction of a small, fan-shaped, artificial island, called Dejima, on which overseas nationals were to be confined.
The Portuguese didn't enjoy it for long, however. They were expelled in 1639. And the Dutch, now Japan's European traders of choice, moved to Dejima in 1641.
How Dejima used to look...
... and how it looks now
Nagasaki was now the only port that foreigners were allowed to use, and this state would continue until 1858 (there's more on Japan's "sakoku", or isolation, here).
Nagasaki's harbour is still very impressive
Meanwhile, the Chinese traders in Nagasaki were also confined to their own area. By the beginning of the 1600s, a formal Chinatown had arisen. Like Dejima, this area was initially a reclaimed island (the name of the neighbourhood, Shinchi, means "new land").
Today, this area is the heart of the Nagasaki Lantern Festival:
In 1629, some of Nagasaki's Fuzhou-origin Chinese founded the Sofukuji Temple. This is a wonderfully atmospheric place, with very distinctively Chinese architecture, and of course the Fuzhou connection made us feel right at home:
Kofukuji Temple is just a little further along the road
Now fast forward to the period after 1859, when Japan's reopening brought a host of foreign traders to the city. Many of them lived in the hillside area adjacent to the Dutch Slope, and a surprising number of their houses can still be seen there:
These former residences also offer good views of fine Japanese constructions...
... and of the striking roofs of the Confucius Shrine, built in 1893 by the city's Chinese community
It was the post-reopening era, of course, that saw the sojourn of Pierre Loti in Nagasaki (8 July to 12 August 1885, to be precise).
And industrialization started in earnest:
The first steam train in Japan ran in Nagasaki in 1868
Such a rich environment...
And having cracked the sleeping problem (fingers crossed), we're able to enjoy it a bit more...