Toma Point

From the 16th to the 19th century the Tokagawa Shogunate decreed that the only Japanese port open to foreigners would be Nagasaki. Beginning with the Portuguese traders in the 1500’s, Nagasaki was the only part of Japan foreigners were allowed to visit. For 300 years, to the Western world, Japan was Nagasaki, and Nagasaki was Japan. No wonder Puccini set his opera Madama Butterfly here in the grand estate of Scottish trader Thomas Blake Glover, which now overlooks the Viking Orion.

The traders established shipyards here, some of which still operate. Although foreigners were required to live on an island outside the city, they could come into the town during daylight hours to trade. And how they did trade! There were so many foreign merchants in Nagasaki that they actually changed the culture. In Japanese there was no word for “thank you” until they heard Portuguese traders saying “obrigado.” The Japanese elided that word into “arigato,” and so it stands today.

Because Nagasaki was such a busy trading center, shipyards sprung up on both sides of the long estuary to the south. First, sailing ships and later iron, coal-fired steamers were built, as Japan frenetically attempted to catch up with Europe. A major shipbuilder, Mitsubishi Corporation, diversified in the 20th century to build cars, weapons and airplanes. The Russo-Japanese War, World War I and the invasion of China in the 1930’s caused the conglomerate to expand exponentially. By 1935 nine-tenths of Nagasaki’s adult population was employed by Mitsubishi. The town was one of Japan’s most prosperous.

What can be a blessing in one season can become a curse when seasons change. The shipyards of Nagasaki made it a prime target in World War II. Nagasaki’s shipyards were subjected to five different conventional bombing raids before the attack on August 9, 1945 made the name Nagasaki synonymous with “holocaust.”

Despite the monumental tragedy, the postwar American occupation officials under General Douglas McArthur did not dissolve Japanese conglomerates. They realized that to restore the nation economically, the vigorous business generated by companies such as Mitsubishi, Hitachi, Toyota and Toshiba would be important.

Those companies are still here, and so is Nagasaki, thriving and beautiful. The city is still challenged by Japan’s current economic woes spawned by mismanaged prosperity in the 1980’s. Judging from the way she has recovered from cataclysmic setbacks in the past, however, I would bet that Nagasaki is not out of the game yet.Read more