The lilting strains of Kiyoshi Maekawa’s famous enka song from the yesteryears — ‘It rained again in Nagasaki’ —plays in our bus, as we drive into the picturesque port town with stunning views of the silvery U-shaped bay, and houses tumbling down its hills and slopes. Most people know Nagasaki in southern Kyushu, for its tragic past. When the Fat Man atomic bomb was detonated over the city on August 9, 1945, it decimated it to rubble in one blinding flash and killed 70,000 citizens. Many would die and suffer for decades from radiation-related diseases and cancer.
But I discover that Nagasaki is not all about its sombre past only — I delve deeper, and find out that it’s also the birthplace of Christianity in Japan. It all began in 1550 when Portuguese traders landed their ship here, a small fishing town ruled by warring feudal lords. This was followed by the arrival of Dutch and Chinese merchants and Jesuit missionaries, who spread Christianity, building many churches. But this cultural exchange was cut short when in 1587, the ruler Toyotomi Hideyoshi, afraid that the country would be conquered, banned Christianity.
When in 1631 the country was closed from the outside world after a Christian peasant-led rebellion, the one exception was Dejima, a man-made island outside the city which functioned as a Dutch outpost. If you’ve read David Mitchell’s novel The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet , then this will be familiar. The wily Dutch drove away the Portuguese and wooed the shogun with gifts of imported exotic animals. Toshi san, our Japanese guide, tells us that the only women who were allowed there were the geisha (courtesans).
For more than two centuries, Nagasaki remained the sole sliver of connection with the outside world until 1859, when the cloistered country was again open to trading. Merchants from different countries flocked here and built homes and Nagasaki was the centre of the Meiji Industrial Revolution, with the development of iron, ship building and coal industries. The photogenic city straddles a hilly terrain, where every walk turns out to be a workout. Old vintage-style street cars rumble down crooked streets, and school kids with yellow caps and backpacks walk on sidewalks. “This is one city where bicycles are not seen, because of its topography,” says Toshi san. The marriage of many cultural influences, lends Nagasaki an eclectic and cosmopolitan character today, quite different from other Japanese cities that I have visited. It was the first place where goods like coffee, sugar, bread and Western medicines, entered the Japanese mainland.
I see Ming-era Chinese temples with dragons and paper lanterns, and vividly painted boats-on-wheels used as floats in the annual Spirit Boat Festival in August. But the real discovery I make is castella , wrapped artistically and sold all over town — a bright yellow and airy sponge cake made with egg yolk, honey and wheat flour, based on a recipe originally introduced by Portuguese missionaries in the 16th Century. They say that even the signature Japanese food tempura was derived from a fried food batter, introduced by the Portuguese; toruko rice is another popular Turkish-inspired dish on the local menu, where pilaf rice and spaghetti are piled onto a plate, along with a pork cutlet drenched in glazed sauce.
To get a glimpse into the romantic Nagasaki of the past, we go to Glover Garden, an open-air museum of relocated clapboard and brick homes surrounded by gardens, built by foreign pioneers in trade, located on a hill overlooking the harbour. This is named after Scottish trader Thomas Glover, who arrived in Japan when he was just 21, and built the first Western-style home in Japan. Glover brought the railways to Nagasaki and was also responsible for building the Mitsubishi steel works. We traipse down steps, and moving walkways, exploring landscaped gardens with koi ponds, as the sun beats down relentlessly over our heads. The show-stopper here is the home of Thomas Glover and his Japanese wife Tsuru — a time capsule of nostalgia — with large spacious verandahs, arches, and French windows which co-exist with typical Japanese tiled roofs with protective demon heads.
The best place to get a peek into the city’s Christian connection is Oura Church, with its pointed steeple, perched high above a flight of stairs, and flanked by palm trees. It was built in 1864, and is Japan’s oldest surviving Gothic church, designated as a National Treasure. It’s an atmospheric space with its hundred-year-old stained-glass windows and bamboo pews. A wall panel outside the church commemorates the 26 saints who were executed in 1597 on a close-by hill, due to the ban on Christianity. The church was built after a group of hidden Christians announced themselves to the French priest; they had practised Christianity in stealth for many years.
Come evening, I head towards the Peace Park to connect with the city’s tragic past. A gargantuan bronze statue of a man in a meditative pose, with his right hand pointing upwards, fashioned by famous sculptor Seibo Kitamura, dominates the park. Every year on August 9, school children and citizens make a declaration of peace here. Close-by is a fountain that spews water in the shape of doves.
We cap off our visit with a cable car ride to Mount Inasa, for a bewitching night-time panorama. Looking down at the glittering bay and town with its buildings and bridges and the huge cruise ship docked in the harbour, I muse on my time in this open and welcoming city, which has overcome a difficult history and re-invented itself — a city, with so many layers, that it would take a lifetime to discover it.
