Kyushu's rugged hills shaped by winds that once repelled Mongol invasions. Photo / Jessica Kozuka
From Kirin beer to the introduction of sugar, a new 10-day walking tour traces Kyushu in Japan’s hidden foreign influences, writes Jessica Kozuka.
A million spindly black pines at Niji no Matsubara tilt drunkenly away from the shore, moulded by the relentless push of winds off the coast of northern Kyushu. As we walk through the grove, guide Ben Corbett tells me the same winds, whipped into typhoons, supposedly repelled two Mongol invasions in the 13th century, birthing the term kamikaze or “divine wind”.
The resulting idea of Japan as an inviolate island nation, isolated and idiosyncratic, has loomed large in the common imaginary since.
But in truth, Japan was always permeable to outside influences, particularly in Kyushu, where it sits closest to the Asian mainland. Many of the cultural mainstays that are currently bringing visitors flocking to the country in record-breaking numbers were shaped by international influences and foreign residents.
That tangled heritage is the theme behind a new 10-day tour from Walk Japan, Saga and Nagasaki: Cultural Crossroads. Corbett, a long-term Nagasaki resident himself, crafted the itinerary.
“Many Japanese tour itineraries understandably focus on a largely ‘native’ historical narrative,” he says. “Having the opportunity to introduce and discuss figures such as Lee Sam Pei, and the wider contexts surrounding them, is always a welcome chance to open up broader conversations – particularly around themes like migration and cultural exchange.”
Lee was a Korean and the father of Japanese porcelain, I learn at the famed pottery towns of Arita and Okawachi-yama (Imari). At the end of the 16th century, the lord of the Saga Domain embarked on a disastrous plan to conquer Korea. His invasion failed but he did return home with master potters. The artisans brought the technology to construct climbing kilns that were larger and higher temperature than cave kilns, revolutionising local ceramics. Then, in 1616, Lee discovered a large deposit of high-quality kaolin stone near Arita. Combined with the higher-temperature kilns, the potters now had the ingredients to make the delicately translucent celadon wares of their homeland. Arita and Imari became synonymous with porcelain.
On the outskirts of Arita, next to the hollowed-out remains of the Izumiyama Kaolin Quarry, we visit a small Shinto shrine on the top of a hill. Lee is enshrined here, his contribution to Japan’s craft tradition rewarded with deification. A ceramic statue of the man, dressed in Korean hanbok and sitting in meditation, is partially sheltered from the elements and draped with hemp ropes and white flags indicating a Shinto holy spot.
Although we are the only people on the deserted grounds, some previous visitor, perhaps a local potter, has left a small bottle of sake at his feet in gratitude or supplication.
The impact of this new Japanese porcelain and Karatsu ware, the stoneware tradition the Koreans helped develop, flowed out to other areas of culture, including tea ceremonies, where the ceramics of Saga quickly became highly prized. But it wasn’t the only foreign influence on that quintessentially Japanese practice. Wagashi, the beautifully presented sweets that accompany matcha, owe a debt of gratitude to the Portuguese.
We have come to Hirado, an island off the coast in remote northern Nagasaki, primarily to visit the gravesite of William Adams, the English navigator turned samurai who inspired the Clavell novel and recent Hollywood hit Shōgun. The bitter wind has followed us from Niji no Matsubara, so it is with considerable relief that we step into the sweet-smelling warmth of Tsutaya, a 524-year-old shop famous for a cake called casdoce. Made with plenty of eggs and crusted with large crystals of sugar, it is rich and tooth-achingly sweet but a welcome pairing to hot black coffee. Many places in Hirado sell casdoce and other European-style sweets, a legacy of the island’s past as the late 16th and early 17th century trading base for the Portuguese.
Sugar had been introduced to Japan via China in the 8th century, but in such small, dear amounts that it was largely used in medicines for the ultra-elite. The Portuguese, however, imported seemingly endless sugar from their colonial mills, bringing the sweetener into reach for wider swathes of the population and introducing it into Japanese cuisine. Although wagashi already existed at the time, using the natural sweetness of ground nuts and glutinous rice, for example, cane sugar opened up a new range of possibilities. It became a key ingredient in wagashi staples such as adzuki bean paste.
Food culture in the prefecture of Nagasaki is rife with international influence. The terraced tea fields of Ureshino, where we share a drink with local farmers, originally flourished thanks to knowledge of tea farming and processing brought by the previously mentioned Korean potters. The mountain resort of Unzen, where we soak in volcanic hot springs, is known for Euro-fusion dishes such as Hayashi rice (beef and onions in a demi-glace sauce), a legacy of its 19th-century popularity as a summer getaway for expats from British-occupied Shanghai. But the multinational character of Nagasaki food is nowhere clearer than in Nagasaki City, home to Japan’s oldest Chinatown.
From the 17th century, Nagasaki was the official port for Chinese traders, attracting a large population of transplants from Fujian in particular. We try two famous dishes that emerged from that diaspora: champon, noodles in a creamy pork and seafood soup, and sara-udon, an evolution of champon that ladles a thickened sauce over crunchy fried noodles. Later, Corbett takes us to Iwasaki Honten to sample its kakuni manju, Chinese-style steamed buns stuffed with slabs of soy sauce-simmered pork belly. And at dinner, there’s hatoshi, a Nagasaki specialty of fried shrimp paste sandwiches that also has Chinese roots, and crispy shrimp and vegetable tempura. Portuguese traders’ penchant for battering and deep-frying their food, particularly during Lent, evolved into the lightly fried bites now synonymous with Japan.
To burn off some of the calories Nagasaki is packing on, we climb the surrounding hills to visit the former home of Thomas Glover, a Scottish merchant who played a key role in Japan’s modernisation in the late 19th century. He arrived in Nagasaki in 1859 when powerful factions in Kyushu opposed the ruling shogunate and sought to restore the emperor with the help of foreign knowledge and technology. Glover made a fortune brokering deals for weapons and boats on both sides. When the shogunate was eventually overturned, Japan began a period of rapid modernisation known as the Meiji Restoration.
Under the foreigner-friendly Meiji Government, Glover helped establish several companies that now dominate Japan’s economy. He invested in a struggling brewery producing a beer named after a mythical Chinese beast: Kirin. Now a multinational beverage giant with annual revenues exceeding US$15 billion ($26b), Kirin still produces beer under that name. Corbett tells me the label’s impressively moustachioed kirin is rumoured to be a reference to Glover’s own bushy whiskers. Glover also invested in the first slip dock for Nagasaki’s shipyards and a coal mine for fuel. Both would eventually be absorbed into a new heavy industries company called Mitsubishi, where Glover stayed on as a consultant until he died in 1911.
On our final night, we head through the nightlife district of Kumamoto to lift a glass of Glover’s brew to a successful tour.
I first came to Japan 20 years ago and reflect on what it means to be an immigrant here. For some, coming to Japan is a twist of fate, the choice to stay motivated by love or a resonance with a culture not granted at birth. Others go where they must in search of security, financial or physical. But foreign as we are, we are still a part of the fabric of society and culture, contributing in ways that will shape Japan for generations to come. And Kyushu has shown just how essential that fusion can be.
The writer travelled courtesy of Walk Japan.