The Chinese Temples of Nagasaki, Japan
Visiting the best preserved Chinese temples in the world
Nagasaki, Japan is located on the western coast of Kyushu (Japan’s southernmost main island), at the end of a narrow peninsula. Due to its strategic geographic location, it became an important sea port with Korea, China and the west. This brought many cultural influences to Japan, including that of Christianity.
Nagasaki is probably most well-known for being the site of the second atomic bombing that occurred August 9th, 1945. Like Hiroshima, there is a peace park and museum. We visited both and learned that the original target was Kokura (located in Kitakyushu, which is at the northern point of Kyushu) but on the 9th the cloud cover was too dense for the bombardier to identify a target — so they turned towards Nagasaki, the secondary target. Nagasaki was also covered in clouds, but a break allowed them to drop the bomb over the north part of the city, killing 35,000 instantly.
There is now a hypocenter park below where the bomb exploded. The park has a detailed map of the destruction caused to the city. Our AirBnB was about 400 meters from that park.
Interestingly, the majority of the temples and shrines of the city are in the southern region and were far enough away from the hypocenter to not be vaporized. Some were damaged or destroyed by fire, but there is still quite a number of temples and shrines located adjacent to one another on the same street. As well, there are a few scattered in the hillsides nearby.
We tried to visit as many as we could and got around to 12, which is probably half of the temples in the area.
Of particular interest are a few Chinese temples, namely the Kofukuji Temple and the Sofukuji Temple. The Kofukuji Temple is the oldest and one of the most important Chinese-founded temples in Nagasaki. The Sofukuji Temple was originally built in 1629 in a Chinese architectural styl efor Nagasaki’s Chinese residents. Both temples house some of the oldest buildings in the city.
During China’s Great Leap Forward, most cultural heritage sites in China were destroyed. Since these temples were outside of China, they were spared and are now some of the best and last examples of that era.
Having Japanese and Chinese temples right next to each other was a great opportunity for comparison of the different architectural styles. Both of us agreed that we prefer the Japanese style, which retains a natural wood appearance. The Chinese temples are painted and seem less authentic. They are also more intentionally ornate, so their beauty comes from decorations and less so from the form and shape of the buildings themselves.
We arrived at Sofukuji temple late in the day, and for some reason the gate attendant waved us through. We entered a national treasure and national heritage site without having to pay the 300yen entrance fee. This was also nice because we had the place to ourselves.
Nagasaki is a very hilly city. After our visit to the temples, we hiked up one hillside to get to a park at the top. It had a nice view of the harbour and the city surrounding it.
On the way down the other side of the hill, we passed through a temple and tried to get a stamp (Yuki collects ink stamps) but they were already closed for the day. I imagined that it would be nice to live in a hilly city, because you could have a nice view. Unfortunately, the more time we spend in Japan and the more we see the beauty of the country, the more we realize how much Vancouver is lacking. Vancouver doesn’t have hills that give views to every house, nor does it have serene little creeks running down the hill or shrines that offer a moment of peace and rest along the way. As we walked down the hill in Nagasaki, we spotted houses right beside the shrines and beautiful torii gates arching over the neat walkways.
