In one dragon, the whole history of a port

The instant the gongs and the suona sound together, the dragon comes alive — ten people on bamboo poles send a creature a dozen metres long rolling across the square, chasing a golden pearl, its scales clattering and flashing in the October sun. A moment's bewilderment: this is a Japanese festival, so why does it feel like stepping straight into a temple fair in southern China? The air floats with firecracker smoke and incense, the gong-beats so dense the soles of the feet itch. This is Nagasaki Kunchi, the great rite of Suwa Shrine, held October 7th to 9th each year.

The answer lies in the city's own history. Through more than two centuries of Edo-era seclusion, Nagasaki was the one port Japan kept open to trade — the Dutch on Dejima, the Chinese merchants in their quarter — the country's only window able to breathe the outside world directly. So the festival here is unlike any other: that dragon dance, the ja-odori, was taught by hand to local townsmen by the Chinese over two centuries ago, and the shadows of Portugal, Holland and China all remain in the steps of the dedicatory dance.

Kunchi's performances are the hono-odori, taken in turn by the dance-towns, each town's turn coming only once in seven years, so every one treats its year as a great undertaking. Beyond the dragon there is the kawabune, a whole wooden boat spun across the square, and the finale called Kokkodesho, where a palanquin and its riders are flung into the air and caught one-handed — thousands count down as one, then loose that single cry from the depth of the throat, and the ground shakes with it.

That day a family went, packed beside the long stone steps of Suwa Shrine. The stone, worn smooth by centuries of feet, was still warm from a day of sun. Nearby an old man in a happi coat drew a creased programme from his pocket and pointed through it, item by item, for a grandson of perhaps five, murmuring the name of each dance-town. The look on his face was not that of watching a show, but of handing down something meant to pass from one generation to the next.

Afterwards, down the slopes. Nagasaki is a port city built on hillsides, its lanes narrow and steep, foreign window-frames and Japanese roof-tiles crowded together; the slanting sun dyed the stone steps a pale gold, the distant sea catching the day's last light, and salt drifting up wave by wave on the wind. The family walked slowly, no one hurrying to speak, only letting the day's lingering drumbeat fade slowly from the body.

The dragon is back in its box now, not to come out for another seven years. The gongs cannot be taken away, nor the dragon twisting in the sun; but how a port swallowed the whole world and slowly brewed it into a shape of its own — once seen, it is not forgotten. I think my family will be like you: years from now, speaking of Nagasaki, what comes first to mind will not be any one view, but that one writhing dragon, and a whole town's gongs and drums steeped in the smell of the sea.