Nagasaki is not your average Japanese city, and was not even before it was destroyed by an atomic bomb in World War II. First and foremost, it is what no one would expect a small provincial city to be - old, varied, and distinctly international. It feels elegantly cosmopolitan in an extremely aged way, sophisticated by the standards of a century before rather than modern society. For here was the city that Western traders were confined to in Japan's period of relative isolation, where Chinese merchants traded, where Portuguese missionaries attempted to convert the Japanese to Christianity, and where doctors came to the Dutch ships to investigate Western medicine. Here is the first Catholic church in Japan, ironically at the focal point of the atomic bomb; here are the remnants of a vibrant and strange merchant culture hundreds of years past.
To this day, Nagasaki is still an international city. It may not be large, but it is home to naval ships and its own Chinatown. In fact, when I made my first journey to this city, it was for the Lantern Festival held during Chinese New Year.
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Upon arriving in Nagasaki, my companions and I wound our way through the city before the festival, hiking up stairs past houses perched on hillsides to reach the statues of saints that are lined up outside Urakami Cathedral, their faces pockmarked with radiation. We traveled through the city on the aged electric streetcar, feeling as though we had been transported back in time as we heard the clacking sound of the recharging generator when we stopped at traffic lights. We climbed the long, steep hill that is the Dutch Slope, but not before passing by a plaque that marked the "birthplace of bowling" in Japan.
The aptly-named Dutch Slope is a steep cobblestone street lined with souvenir shops in a distinctly Japanese fashion. They all hawk "Dutch" goods that have been filtered through several hundred years of Japanese culture, making them no longer Western but not quite Asian either. Oddly enough, these 16th century Dutch luxury goods are now the signature souvenirs of Nagasaki: a pound cake, distinct glassworks, cookies. To look upon these shops, with the smooth blue-green harbor in the distance, is to be transported to a time that never quite existed, old and new all at once. It is a tiny Disneyland of Renaissance Dutch culture.
At the top of the hill lies the preserved estate of a 19th century businessman, Glover Mansion. As we strolled through the beautiful gardens and looked out on the city from atop this vantage point, I began to feel disappointed with the house that we had just walked through. It was nothing more than a typical, solidly-built 19th century dwelling, sparsely furnished with family antiques and photographs of daily life. What a waste of money, I thought, because this house isn't even that remarkable.
But then it hit me: yes, it was remarkable. It may not have seemed like much to me - I'd seen friends' houses back in the United States that were older and more interesting - but I was in Japan. How many 19th century English estates dotted the countryside here? Absolutely none.
I wondered about the other tourists then; what did they think of this house, so different from traditional and even modern Japanese architecture? In comparison, it was simply so heavy, so old, so dark and closed off. Even its window-filled verandas didn't help; it was a barrier to the gardens surrounding it, not a natural part of them. It was so unlike a Japanese estate, so much more inflexible and monolithic.
It was surreal, now that I had thought about it, to see this piece of Western history sitting heavily on a hill in a Japanese city. It was so incongruous with its wide front porch and huge staircases. On our walk down through the gardens, we came across a little photography studio where one could dress up in "authentic" Victorian outfits and have a photo taken in the gardens. Surreal, indeed. No matter how familiar the house felt to me, I was still certainly in Japan; what was comfortingly familiar to me was strangely exotic to everyone else.
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We had time for a break before the Lantern Festival parade began, and we spent it appropriately - in Time. We found this tiny cafe perched above other shops, accessible only by a narrow staircase, and fell in love with it immediately. Time was like something straight out of the early 20th century: dark, wood-paneled walls, low booths, wavy glass in the windows, quaint antique teapots and china. But best of all was what stood behind the counter - a huge, antique Dutch coffee maker, a complicated scientific contraption. The hand-made menu, too, was like something out of a bizarre time warp; they offered the standard Nagasaki-style Chinese food and Japanese staples like beef curry, but added to this fare was what can only be described as authentic hobo sandwiches. Hot fillings were pressed between two slices of ordinary bread and then sealed at the edges with a sandwich maker, while it was grilled until slightly crispy and gooey.
I never imagined that a hard-boiled egg, cucumber, and spaghetti sauce hobo sandwich could taste so good, but I still dream of it to this day.
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After bidding a sad farewell to the amused staff of Time, we continued on to the Lantern Festival itself. Once again, we expressed gratitude for Japan's total lack of container laws as we each purchased cans of beer from the nearby convenience store and commenced drinking in the street. As with many things in Japan, though, the much-hyped parade was an enormous let-down. We quickly lost interest and focused our attention on the festival grounds, which were the really interesting attraction. All through Chinatown, lanterns were strung up overhead, light filtering down red and yellow through their thin paper. Food stalls lined the crowded alleys, hawking Chinese buns and meat on a stick. In the central festival grounds, costumed performers went through the motions of traditional Chinese dances next to more food stalls, dragon sculptures made from pop cans and Christmas lights, and a display of pig heads before which one could leave offerings - presumably, for luck in the new year. Above us, a garish Monkey King (for the year of the monkey) lurched around on his pole.
Colorful though the festival was, we had left our town for Nagasaki at 7:30 that morning and were fading fast. Because of the festival's crowds, there wasn't a single open hotel room in the city, and our plans of simply staying up all night were looking less and less viable. After a truly effort-filled session of karaoke failed to raise our spirits, we were left to face our options for the evening.
I'll never remember how it came up, but as we nixed both bars and more karaokke, we hit upon our best option: love hotel.
Japan, for all its clean and businesslike exterior, has a fabulously seedy underbelly which includes theme hotels that rent to couples by the hour. None of our group had patronized a love hotel before, but surely they couldn't all be full from the Lantern Festival. After all, what self-respecting Japanese tourist would consider that an option?
And where were these establishments located in Nagasaki? Surprisingly, they were not in the acknowledged red-light district full of hostess bars and strip clubs. What would be the most unlikely and, indeed, offensive place to find a rent-by-the hour love hotel? That's right: they all overlook the atomic bomb hypocenter.
Feeling both awkward and punchy from our tiring day, we crowded into the lobby of the first hotel we came across, named Seagull. There, we were given our introduction to the love hotel system. We found ourselves in a dimly-lit entryway, devoid of all people, and were faced with a large, lit-up matrix of buttons, each with a picture of a themed room. We chose the only open one: a tropical paradise. The button dimmed, and an elevator door opened, preset to our floor. A few moments later, we arrived at the room, the door open and waiting for us.
Still clueless as to the process and giddy about our adventures, all five of us left our shoes in the vestibule (of course, we were still in Japan), and crashed into the room. It was brightly lit, furnished all in white and with fake ocean scenes covering the blue walls. We had just started to have a good time taking goofy silhouette pictures of ourselves against the ocean murals when there was a knock on the door.
As the only Japanese-speaking member of our group, I was of course nominated to talk to the creepy proprietor, and explain why we had five people in one room, as well as figure out payment. He motioned to a pneumatic tube in the corner: put the money in there and it whisks away to its destination, with no person there to take it from us directly. If we ordered anything out of the room service catalog of amenities (can you guess what was in there?), we could put our money and order in the tube, and the item would come whisking back to us. Theoretically, one never has any actual human contact in a love hotel transaction, making it the ultimate in discreet experiences.
That is, unless you are in a party of five loud, confused foreigners all crammed into a tiny beach-themed room. Then, you will have direct human contact and realize why the love hotels avoid this kind of situation - because the people who run them are downright weird.
We managed to work out payment, but there was still the issue of our large group - since there were so many of us, we needed to pay for at least two rooms. According to the creepy guy, they were in the process of "tidying up" a larger room (cringe) that three of us could stay in. We waited for a bit, and he came back to lead us there. Bidding goodbye to our two friends who volunteered for the tropical experience, we apprehensively peeked inside of our new room.
The creepy guy wasn't kidding - three people could indeed stay, if not live comfortably in that space. The suite was at least half the size of my own apartment, and it contained a TV with a karaoke machine, a stereo system, a sofa, and a lounge area; in a connected room was a huge bed complete with mirrors overhead. (Well, we were in a love hotel. Don't get the author started on the shower with windows out onto the TV room.) The best thing about the room, though, was its theme: a Heian court. The Heian period (about 800 - 1200 AD) was the period of Japanese history and literature that the author had spent the better part of three years studying in college just before coming to Japan to teach, and you can imagine her geeky excitement at this room. The Heian period was a time of court intrigue, mysterious ladies behind their screens, of love poetry and aesthetically-aware aristocrats, of famous and dramatic love affairs.
If one felt the urge, one could certainly reenact most scenes of The Tale of Genji in our humble Seagull.
The worst thing about the room? An air conditioning vent was going full-blast directly into the room, despite it being February, and we could not figure out how to turn it off. We were serenaded all night by the oppressive sound of an air vent turned on high, and it kept the room at a brisk 62 degrees. As we were sharing the blankets between the bed and sofa, we ended up wearing our coats on top of it all. So much for balmy Heian romance.
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My other visit to Nagasaki, later in the year, also involved an interesting overnight stay. Thankfully, when I visited for the second time, there were no international festivals being held, and my mother and I had our choice of hotels. We went for a lower-priced ryokan, or traditional Japanese inn; while traveling through Japan, why not immerse ourselves in the culture? We were looking forward to our first stay in a non-Western room and picturing the old-fashioned paper windows and tatami mats already.
After a tricky search through Nagasaki's very active red light district (where love hotels are not found, strangely) we found our place, nestled atop several staircases so steep and narrow that only one person could climb them at once. It was a squat white building, an oversized house that looked traditional and yet modern. It was nothing fancy, but at least it was not a tiresome Western-style business hotel.
Upon knocking hesitantly, we were greeted by our host for the evening: Grandmother. She was squat and aggressive, graying hair curled into a tight perm, enormous thick glasses perched heavily on her face. When we entered, she immediately scolded us and make us go back to the vestibule to put on "better" slippers; apparently, the ones we had chose didn't look to her like they fit properly. Obediently, we put on the smaller ones that she pointed to, and sat down with her to fill out our information.
The most interesting point of our conversation with Grandmother was her choice of language. Not Japanese, not English, it was somewhere in between. She didn't seem to notice that I was speaking Japanese, not English, and replied to me in heavily-accented English that was arranged carefully in Japanese word order. Sometimes, she combined English words with Japanese verbs, and sometimes there was no verb at all. It was "English" that was understandable only if one spoke Japanese fairly well. Thus, my mother was introduced to the "English" of Japan.
We were shown to our room and, being absolutely exhausted, we decided to just shower and go to bed. I showered first - evidently a mistake. While I was in the bathroom, unable to hear any of this, the phone rang. My mother, not able to speak a word of Japanese, is ever intrepid and picked it up anyway. "Hello?"
A surprised silence greeted her, and then a hesitant voice began, "Make bed now?"
The futons, in traditional Japanese style had been packed away in the closet when we arrived; the old woman, however, had already unfolded them for us. The deep male voice asked gain, "Make bed now?"
"Already done! Bed made!"
"Make bed now?"
"Done! Already done."
Silence. "..... Make bed now?"
My mom had run out of explanations. Not knowing what else to do, she simply acquiesced. "Okay."
Moments later, there was a knock on our door, and an enormous, shy young man stood in the doorway. "Make bed.... Oh."
He had seen that the beds were pulled out and arranged, and simply stared, unsure of what to do. He was slightly panicked; had we been forced to make the beds ourselves? Seizing the opportunity, my mom simply made "O" shapes with her hands and held them up to her eyes, imitating Coke-bottle glasses. The man's eyes lit up with recognition.
"Oh! Grandmother!" He smiled with relief. "Grandmother do."
"Yes," my mom agreed, "Grandmother do."
"Oh. Good night." And with that, he was gone back downstairs.
In the morning, Grandmother do again - this time, breakfast. Grandmother's specialty turned out to be vienna sausages, salad, and vegetable soup with toast and eggs. Thanks, Grandmother!
Incidentally, this place is called Nishiki-sou and the author does sincerely recommend it, especially if you like vienna sausages.
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After our night at the Seagull, my friends and I took advantage of our location to have a significantly more sobering experience. The hotel's proximity to the hypocenter - the point over which the atomic bomb exploded - made it only a short walk to the austere memorial. It is a tall monolith of black stone, surrounded by by concentric stone circles, presumably to illustrate the shock radiating out from that point upon the explosion. It is profoundly simple and stark, an unavoidable reminder in the middle of a plain grassy field.
Near the memorial - across the tiny river that was choked with burned bodies after the explosion - is the very moving Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum. Here, no detail is spared in illustrating the development and deployment of the bomb, and its long ranging effects on the people of Nagasaki. One is shown what was immediately destroyed - artifacts abound from the elementary school, prison, workplaces and homes that the bomb was dropped on - as well as the damage and long-term diseases that were left behind. Not only does one see burned and bloodied uniforms, melted glass bottles and coins, and carbonized rice inside school lunch boxes, but the effects of radiation as well - photographs and descriptions of victims' cancer, blindness, keloid scars. The bomb's tremendous long-term damage is show completely and honestly on those somber black walls.
The museum's path ends with the memories of survivors in video and audio clips, personal narratives, and post-war books and paintings. While the museum is unflinching and unsparing in its depiction of the bomb's numerous victims, it is also a plea for common sense and, ultimately, peace. Without any heavy-handed moralizing, it demonstrates through simple graphs and diagrams the rate at which nuclear weapons have proliferated since World War II. It is left to the visitor to draw conclusions from seeing the effects that the bomb had on Nagasaki's residents, and whether the demonstrated proliferation is positive.
It is the opinion of this author that if every American simply took half a day in the Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum, there would be no more debate as to whether we should have dropped the bomb on that city. In Hiroshima, we could at least argue (if we were so inclined) that we didn't yet know what the bomb would do to a city and its people. We were still ignorant of the effects. In Nagasaki, however, one cannot shake the thought while seeing the immense and tragic destruction that we already knew what the bomb would do - we dropped it anyway, deliberately and consciously, aware of the consequences. And that fact, more than anything else, makes one inclined after viewing the museum to view the bomb as an avoidable tragedy and a crime against humanity, not a natural disaster or a necessary evil to end a lengthy and destructive war.