Nagasaki – Gateway To The World – Greg and Mandy's Travels

Today was the day to explore a whole new side of Japan that most people don’t know about. Nagasaki, for a time, was Japan’s gateway to the world.

Around about 1550 the first foreign traders made their way to Asia from Portugal and bumped into Japan. They started a fairly lucrative trade with Asian countries and tried to tie up the whole of the Asian trade routes. But the Dutch were having none of that. By 1600 they had arrived too, having first established the Dutch East India Company in what is now Indonesia as their base. In 1602 Dutch trading ships started arriving in force, but this coincided with the commencement of the Edo period in 1603 when the newly crowned Shogun seized power from the emperor, and started ruling Japan by himself.

Like most rulers, he was fairly lenient in his early years. However, by 1614 he was worried about the spread of Christianity and started persecuting Christians. In 1616 he banished all foreigners from Japan to make sure of it, and ceased any trade. But that wasn’t going to work. Japan needed, or at least wanted, many of the things that they had got used to trading for. They wanted to prevent their gold and silver reserves being taken overseas, but they were desperate for sugar, spices, cloves, glass, western medicine, and surprisingly the Dutch reports on current world events to keep them up-to-date. They also wanted to export copper for precious foreign money, as well as porcelain and camphor.

So the Shogun decided that a neat way around his own edict was to set aside an island in Nagasaki harbour and designate it as the only place where selected foreigners could arrive and trade. They built a few residences and warehouses on this tiny island known as Dejima, and restricted it to trade with the Dutch and the Chinese. It was this island that we explored this morning.

The shogun also banned Japanese from traveling abroad, except for some of the very elite. The Portuguese were the first to utilise Dejima but, despite them introducing the concept of deep-frying to Japan, they were all expelled in 1639, and the Dutch traders in Nagasaki were forced to relocate to the island in their place.

And so it remained for over 200 years, until 1859 when the Emperor, who was back in charge, decided that other countries would be allowed to trade with Japan, the inhabitants spread out from Dejima, and the island fell into disuse,

After we explored the island and the buildings, we walked up the hill to explore the settlements that the foreigners had developed once they were no longer banned, including the oldest Christian church in Japan, and some very old but grand houses, one of which was originally the Russian embassy, and then the American Embassy.

We wandered around the port of Nagasaki at morning tea time, and marvelled how it had changed from a merchant port into a tourist port. There was a huge cruise ship in the harbour disgorging hundreds of Chinese tourists into a multitude of tour groups.

Back for a late lunch, and as the sun was setting, we headed up the mountain overlooking the city, and watched as the night lights started appearing.