Kyushu

Kyushu couldn't be more varied, with active yet accessible volcanoes, thermal spas, endless fields of rice and potatoes, forested mountains capped by winter snows, busy harbors, and seaside resorts.

Ruins and artifacts thousands of years old suggest that Kyushu was the gateway for human contact between Japan and the rest of Asia. The most rapid anthropological changes occurred from about 300 bc" to ad" 300, when rice became widely cultivated and complex pottery and tools began to appear, thus conveniently framing the Yayoi Period. Continuous trade with China brought prosperity and culture to the region, and advanced ceramics were introduced—and then produced—by Korean masters that were employed and enslaved by the local fiefdoms of the 16th and 17th centuries.

It was also through Kyushu that Western knowledge, weapons, religion, and cooking methods made inroads into Japan. Nagasaki saw the arrival of vast fleets of European merchants and missionaries in the mid-1500s, and a frenzy of trading in ideas and goods continued unabated until the Tokugawa Shogunate shut the door in the early 1600s, in the spasms of a panic induced by the alarming phenomenon of Christianity. The Portuguese and other Catholics fond of preaching to the natives were expelled and permanently barred, but the Dutch, considered more money-minded, were permitted to stay—under scrutiny. They were housed within the enclave of Dejima, a man-made island in Nagasaki Harbor, where they were constantly guarded and watched. This was the only point of contact the West would have with Japan until Perry's forceful visit more than 200 years later.

Today Kyushu is a fascinating mix of old and new, and of nature and culture. Much of the remote and rugged interior—such as that surrounding Mt. Aso's fuming cone—is still untrammeled, yet the amenities of modern life are well supplied in cities and seaside resorts, in areas that have been inhabited for 10,000 years.

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