Kagoshima: Japan's Forgotten Father

Brent Katte | Kansai Time Out, June 2008

The Shiroyama observatory, perched 100 meters above Terukuni shrine, provides a stunning panorama of southeastern Kyushu, birthplace of so much of Japan. Just past the towering concrete tori lies downtown Kagoshima, prefectural capital; five kilometers offshore the giant sleeping in her midst. The ridge isn’t the mountain its name implies, but the western edge of a huge volcanic caldera 20 kilometers across. Sakurajima, one of the world’s most active volcanoes and symbol of the city, though formidable and looming, is just a fraction of the geological maelstrom that formed much of the region 22,000 years ago and continues to do so today. Around 1800 years ago, the Yamato, Japan’s dominant ethnic group, left southeastern Kyushu on their northward migration and settled in Nara, heralding the start of the country’s modern political history. To the northeast in neighboring Miyazaki is Takachiho, the mountain where the divine became mortal and birthplace of the country’s first emperor. A few hours offshore lies Tanegashima, the island where Europeans first landed in Japan, bringing firearms and Christianity, now home to the country’s space program. A little over two kilometers away is the birthplace of Saigo Takamori, revolutionary and counterrevolutionary, leader of the Meiji Restoration; less than one kilometer northeast the spot of his infamous suicide. Just out of town are the remains of the Shuseikan industrial complex, Japan’s first modern factories, started by the Shimazu clan, rulers of Satsuma, conquerors of Okinawa, and the wealthiest family of the Tokugawa era. From Shiroyama, site of the final battle of the Satsuma Rebellion, the city’s Vesuvius seems to float on the water, alternately quiescent and rumbling. Consistently evolving, Sakurajima is a fitting metaphor for Kagoshima, a peak of birth, death, and rebirth overlooking a city pivotal in Japan’s evolution.

Kagoshima, historically known as Satsuma, population 600,000, is Kyushu’s fourth largest city and Japan’s southernmost metropolis. A castle town dating from the 14th century, Kagoshima lies in the northeastern part of the Satsuma peninsula on Kinko Bay. The city looks east, facing Sakurajima, a stratovolcano 4 kilometers offshore, and the Osumi peninsula, at the south of which lies Cape Sata, the southernmost point of mainland Japan. The prefecture is subtropical, enjoying a balmy, sunny reputation and an average temperature of 18 degrees. Kagoshima is sister cities with Naples, among others, and is often referred to as the Naples of the Orient, owing to its climate, bayside location and volcano, which has been erupting almost constantly since 1956. The city is famous for many things; politicians, revolutionaries, the world’s largest radishes and smallest oranges, sweet potatoes, shochu, cut-glass, hot springs, and a famously difficult dialect, among others. Kagoshima’s size belies its historical importance, and its been perhaps overshadows its accessibility, its citizens a friendly, enthusiastic, and accommodating bunch.

Kagoshima’s statue of Saigo Takamori sits at the southern end of a section of Nakanohirotori street known as the Culture Zone, a stretch home to numerous monuments and museums celebrating local history, the northern end anchored by the remains of Tsurumaru castle. Unlike the statue in Tokyo’s Ueno Park, here Takamori’s likeness looms out over the city in full military regalia as Japan’s first army general, face stern and imposing. One of the country’s most romanticized figures, Takamori and fellow Kagoshima son Okubo Toshimichi, along with Kido Takayoshi of Yamaguchi, made up the Ishin no Sanketsu, or Three Great Nobles, the chief men responsible for the Meiji revolution. Born in 1828, the “last great samurai” was sent to Kyoto by Hisamitsu Shimazu, the Satsuma daimyo, as the region’s Tokugawa representative. In Kyoto Takamori formed the Satcho Alliance, a secret partnership with Choshu (modern day Yamaguchi) representative Takayoshi aimed at ending Tokugawa rule. In the following Boshin War, an imperial army of southern samurai and the Emperor Meiji declared the abolition of the 200 year old Shogunate, and by 1869, Edo had been renamed Tokyo and Japan was on its way to becoming an empire.

A bit farther north, on the Shiroyama ridge just past the Kagoshima JR Main Line, is a monument to Takamori’s death. Instrumental in the overthrow of the Shogun, Takamori, disaffected with the revolution, returned home and recommitted himself to sonno joi (Revel the Emperor, Expel the Barbarians), starting paramilitary training academies throughout the city. Tokyo, now championing fukoku kyohei (Rich Country, Strong Military) and wary of Satsuma’s insubordinate traditions, sent spies to the region, triggering a revolt that grew into the Satsuma Rebellion. Takamori became the rebel commander, leading a force of 12,000 against the very army he had helped create 11 years ago. Repelled after a failed siege of Kumamoto castle, he returned to Kagoshima, where he was mortally wounded in the Battle of Shiroyama, and shortly after committed seppuku. With him died the samurai class and many would argue bushido, the Way of the Warrior, 1000 years of Japanese tradition. He’s buried at Nanshu cemetery in Nanshu park, also home to a shrine and museum.

On a bank of the Kotsuki river, about a fifteen minute walk from Takamori’s statue, is the Museum of the Meiji Restoration, a tool providing a context for the monuments dotting the city and a nice complement to the Reimeikan, the Prefectural Museum of Culture. The city also boasts an impressive art collection at the Kagoshima Municipal Museum of Art, and a unique venture in its Modern Literature and Fairy Tale (Marchen) Museum, both accessibly located in the Culture Zone.

Roughly a ten-minute walk away in Tenmonkan, a covered shopping arcade named after an early astronomical observatory, is Kumasotei, a favorite local restaurant. Traditionally tatami, Kumasotei specializes in Satsuma Ryori, classic food of the region. Their set lunches and dinners provide a nice chance to sample a wide-range of the local haute cuisine, justifiably famous and quite inspired.

Though the omiyage shops at the airport seem dominated by shochu and sweet potato products, Satsuma cuisine has quite a lot more to offer. The region is famous for it its kurobuta (black Berkshire pig) and kuroushi (Japanese black beef) as well as its satsuma-age (fried fish sausage), eels, and local sashimi dish, kibinago. In contrast to the rest of the country, tonkatsu in Kagoshima is a stew of pork slow-cooked in imo shochu, a liquor distilled from sweet potatoes, unlike mugi shochu, which is made from barley. Imo shochu has an earthier taste than mugi; a bit more character, something proudly celebrated by the locals and catching on throughout the country.

Looking from the rear deck on a Sakurajima ferry headed to the island, the shoreline just north of downtown Kagoshima alternates gray and green, a collection of marinas and parks. One hundred and forty-five years ago the British navy bombarded the area now known as Gion-no-Su-cho for two days in the brief Anglo-Satsuma War. In the park are two shrines and the remains of several fortifications, and, quite fittingly, a statue of Kagoshima’s Togo Heihachiro, the “Nelson of the East” and admiral of Japan’s navy in the pivotal Russo-Japanese War. Just south of Gion-Su-cho is Ishibashi Hall and its park, home to the three remaining stone bridges that once spanned the Koutsuki river, relocated after a devastating flood in 1993. Just offshore on a small island is the city’s monument to the landing of Francis Xavier in 1549. A kilometer down the coast is Kagoshima’s Iso district, site of Satsuma’s revolutionary factories, the Shimazu villa, and the adjoining Sengan’en garden, a registered place of scenic beauty. The ferry ride to Sakurajima is roughly fifteen minutes, enough time for photos at both bow and the stern, the boat floating between two monumental agents of change. To the east is a mountain continually evolving; to the west a shoreline of profound historical consequence.

Furosato onsen is just one of Kagoshima’s 2600, but its status as shrine and beachside location give it an endearing and unbeatable individuality. Surrounding the pools are large volcanic boulders, the once molten rock now weathered by waves and the tides. Ninety four years ago 3 billion tons of lava spilled out of the mountain, burying three villages and bridging the 500 meter channel between it and the Osumi headland. This last great eruption, 13,000 years into the life of the volcano, sent ash as far away as Russia’s Kamchatka peninsula, clouding the skies for months. Erupting between 100-200 times a year since 1956, with an annual ash fall of between 3-30 million tons, Sakurajima has become an effusive part of life in the city, with umbrellas carried as often for ash as they are for rain, and structures like Tenmonkan shopping arcade built with dust fall in mind. Like Neopolitans, the citizens of Kagoshima seem almost not to notice the catastrophic potential making up a sizeable bit of their backyard. Perhaps it’s because of the continuity, the constant smoke just another bit of cloud. Maybe it’s a fortitude or resignedness; a shochu-buoyed stoicism in face of the inevitable. Or perhaps it’s because Sakurajima is just another agent of change, nothing more than an obdurate bit of evolution, and having been the seat of so much transformation throughout history, Kagoshima simply takes it in a well-accustomed stride.

Kagoshima is accessible by air via Osaka’s Itami and Kansai airports. Shinkansen service is available from Osaka south to Hakata (Fukuoka-ken), from which point the JR Kagoshima line runs to the city, with a section of Shinkansen running halfway down the island from Yatsuhiro to Kagoshima Central station.

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