Original subtitles

Japan. Michael, welcome to Japan, a railway paradise.

Its huge population spread over long islands lived by its railways. It's like

I'm driving.

My new adventure takes me through the land that launched the high -speed

I love Shinkansen.

Where millions of journeys are made each day through some of the most bustling

stations on Earth.

Busy city.

I'll ride Japan's vast railway network.

To uncover a land of bold innovation.

Haven't quite got the hang of it yet.

A place of enduring tradition, volatile geology and remarkable people. Join

me on an excursion like no other. I'm too excited to sit down.

My excursion continues on Kyushu, the most southerly and westerly of Japan's

main islands.

Japan is one of the world's greatest manufacturing economies, and yet it

out entirely on the industrial revolution that transformed the West

mid -18th and mid -19th centuries.

I will travel on Kyushu Island's newest Shinkansen railway to the port of

Nagasaki.

one of two cities destroyed by an atom bomb, to hear how a Scottish trader, one

of the foreigners excluded by Japan, played an important role in its

industrialization and political change.

Visiting Japan opens my European eyes to a distant country with a wholly

different culture and view of life.

In planning my journey across Kyushu Island, I had a choice of over 20 rail

lines. and more than 500 stations.

Having begun in Kagoshima in the south, I'm travelling along the west of the

island, whose history has been shaped by being closest to foreign influences.

Later I'll reach the largest island, Honshu, and arrive in Hiroshima.

This morning I begin with a nine -mile hop on a local commuter train.

Safety depends on procedures that are rigorously followed. In Japan, a train

driver acknowledges his every thought and action with a point of the finger.

That emphasizes that he is constantly following procedure to the letter.

From the station at Chikugo, I make my way a few miles east to the agricultural

city of Yame.

In the mountainous southern Fukuoka region on the Yabe River, with a

of 38 ,000, it's famous across Japan for its production of tea, one of the

nation's favourite drinks.

In Britain, We invest tea with extraordinary recuperative properties.

After any slight misfortune, a friend will recommend that we have a nice cuppa

to make us feel better. But it's served entirely without ceremony.

In Japan, tea occupies entirely a different position. It has evolved over

centuries from being the exclusive preserve of the privileged.

It is held in respect.

and its serving is accompanied by a complex ritual.

I approach the subject with due deference.

I'm in the tea capital of Kyushu.

There are about 15 ,000 growers in the Yame area.

This tea factory, run by the Oishi family, opened in 1940.

Pierrick Groselin, who's French, is the sales director.

Hello, Pierrick.

Oh, hello.

What a pleasure to see you. Welcome in Yamé.

So you're picking the leaves today? Yes, you're right at the time of the new

harvest. Would you mind helping a little bit, removing this?

What, a roller's pack?

Rolling it away, slowly, delicately.

You have been shedding them for two weeks, making the leaves greener,

a superior quality.

The leaves under here look absolutely superb.

Which leaves make the best tea?

It would be just the very top bud and the two following leaves, taken like

making the best tea of all kind.

We associate tea with both China and Japan.

When did it arrive in Japan?

The very first seed arrived like 800 years ago through the island of Kyushu,

through the port of Hirado, which is a little bit north of Nagasaki, and then

after, traveled up.

to the emperor in Kyoto.

Did the Japanese make tea in the same way as the Chinese?

It would be slightly different, since instead of firing it, we are steaming

keeping the tea green, and that's why Japanese green tea is famous worldwide.

What happens at a tea ceremony?

Usually, this is a gathering of guests with a tea master.

It's a combination of tradition.

and like spirituality in order to enjoy tea in a relaxing atmosphere.

What is it about the climate here that makes it so good for tea growing?

Making good tea is about having a good soil.

We had like a very active volcano called Asosan just nearby here, making the

soil rich.

In the mountain area of Yame, you have also like a natural mist, fog covering

every morning.

making it a natural shading, making the tea leaves greener, softer, more

delicious.

I've heard of different sorts of green tea. For which one is Yame famous?

The most renowned, the best green tea in all Japan.

Traditional, authentic Yame Gyokuro, harvested.

By hand, which is the GI, geographical indication register, in the same list

for example, the beef from Kobe.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And so that is a premium tea. That would be very expensive.

How much would you pay for that?

It could be priced between, like, 400 and 500 pounds a kilo.

Ooh, that is very, very special indeed.

A good Bordeaux would be cheaper.

A good Bordeaux or a bottle of champagne, too?

The award -winning factory blends green tea from its own fields and from other

local farms.

Loose leaf and powdered varieties are processed, including Sencha and Matcha.

Thierry, we're surrounded by this magnificent aroma of green tea.

We have a lot of machinery here.

What goes on? What is the process?

So, the main purpose of this factory will be about...

to refine the tea, meaning sorting the different type of tea and also drying

decreasing the level of moisture or increasing the level of umami flavor in

Umami. Interesting word. It's coming from Japan, but they use it all around

world now.

It's pretty noisy in here, but what do we start with?

The big blender.

Blending for 20 minutes.

Sorting. The big leaves from the small leaves. Small leaves go on a different

line. And what happens there?

So here would be about color sorting.

You have the green leaves, but also the white stem.

So this machine, using air pressure, for removing the white stem from the green

leaves. Can you use the stems?

Definitely, yeah. It would be a different tea called cookie chop, the

After, going to these two machines, which would be the dryers.

Then moving to this one, which would be air sorting.

Removing the very small leaves, small particles, mainly used in the tea bags

sold in the supermarket, for example.

So you do every kind of tea here, really? From the best to the most basic?

Exactly.

Japan's green tea industry is worth over £3 billion, with around 70 ,000 tonnes

consumed here each year.

It's said to contain a host of health benefits, and sales across the world

increased dramatically over the last decade.

In the factory tea room, I'm invited to taste the company's matcha, Japanese for

powdered tea, with the owner's son, Executive Director Kenichi Oishi.

Oishi -san.

Hello, I'm Michael.

Thank you. What a pleasure.

Thank you.

This is your family's business, isn't it?

Yes. How many generations?

Fourth generation.

You're the fourth generation.

Pierrick prepares our tea, mixing the bright green matcha powder with boiling

water, using a traditional bamboo whisk known as a chasen to create a foam.

Moving naturally.

From the left to the right.

And then gathering from the side to the middle.

And here it is.

Yamemachi.

That is a splendid tea. It's full of deliciousness and fragrance.

Wonderful tea. Thank you very much.

Around 35 miles west, at the hot springs resort of Takeo Onsen, I'm bound for

the port city of Nagasaki on Japan's superfast Shinkansen bullet train.

As a rail explorer in Japan, you can record your route by collecting eki, or

station stamps, each with a unique design.

They were introduced in the 1930s to encourage travel.

and you can build up a great souvenir.

Kyushu Island is extraordinarily well served by Japanese railways. Here's a

of the network.

Every sort of train.

Shinkansen, diesel, electric, standard gauge and narrow gauge.

And the train spotter is well catered for.

you can look out for all these different models.

I just saw the luxurious tourist train, the 36 plus 3, and here is the Komome.

It means seagull, and it's one of the newest variants of the Shinkansen.

I'm on Kyushu's latest Shinkansen line, opened in 2022.

and its trains travel at an impressive 260 kilometres per hour.

The Komomo trains are fresh and modern. There's much better signage than before.

There's more legroom. We have these beautiful woods.

People say there's no need for first class, because even in economy, you're

getting the top experience.

How magnificent!

This new station is a wonderful gateway to the Bay of Nagasaki, city of history

and of legend.

On Kyushu's west coast, Nagasaki lies on a deep, narrow harbour at the mouth of

the Urukami River, surrounded by steep hills.

During the Second World War, on August 9, 1945,

it was devastated when the United States dropped an atomic bomb.

Up to 70 ,000 people lost their lives and around a third of its buildings were

destroyed.

Over the following decade, it was rebuilt.

and today the thriving port city has over 400 ,000 residents.

To appreciate the topography, I board a cable car from just west of the city

centre to rise more than a thousand feet to the top of Mount Inasa.

Nagasaki is to me surprisingly glamorous for a major port and an industrial hub.

The same beautiful mountains rising deeply from the water's edge that

the inlet make it a picture postcard.

Arigatou.

Portuguese merchants came here in the mid -16th century.

They established it as a trading port in 1571, and the city grew around it.

Because of the mountains soaring above the high -rise buildings, I find it just

about possible to think what Nagasaki was like centuries ago, maybe when the

Portuguese first arrived.

You can see how attractive they would have found it.

Almost 300 years later, in 1859, Thomas Blake Glover, an enterprising young Scot

from Aberdeen, disembarked here.

Then, in his early 20s, he would become one of Japan's most famous foreigners.

Across the bay, his former house is now a popular museum.

I'll explore his remarkable story and the trading history of this city with

author and historian Brian Burke Gaffney.

Brian, I am thrilled to be in Nagasaki. I'm just stunned by its topography.

It's the first time for me here, but it strikes me as one of the world's great

ports. It really is one of the most beautiful, and it's deep in the middle,

surrounded by mountains, and so protected on all sides. So right from

Portuguese period, Nagasaki has been chosen as an ideal port of call by

ships. While I've been in Japan, I've learned that it was closed to the

world for two and a half centuries, with a bit of an exception at Nagasaki.

What was the exception?

Well, the shogunate took a very harsh attitude towards Christianity, and the

Portuguese were dismissed from Japan.

But they wanted to continue the trade.

under their control.

And so they allowed the Chinese and the Dutch, who were Protestant rather than

Catholic, to continue a modicum of trade for more than two centuries.

Nagasaki was literally the only officially open port in Japan.

When Japan eventually bowed to pressure from Western countries and opened up to

foreign trade in the mid -19th century, Nagasaki flourished further.

At 23, Thomas Glover set up his first business here.

He went on to play a key role in the country's industrial revolution.

In 1863, he built this villa on the city's Minami Yamate hillside

overlooking the harbour.

Well, Thomas Glover certainly knew how to pick a view, didn't he? What a

splendid house. Lovely, isn't it?

It's superb.

What would have attracted this young, very young Abedonian to come to

I think he saw in Nagasaki great opportunities and also the relationships

he established here with Japanese samurai at the time convinced him that

Nagasaki was the place to be.

These young samurai went on to be the leaders of Japanese politics and

industry. Now, how did he pull that off? How did he develop these relationships

with the samurai?

He spoke Japanese.

And so it's obvious that he took interest towards Japanese culture and

just his Scottish charm. He was more successful than many other of the

and American merchants who were coming to Nagasaki.

What businesses did he get into?

Thomas Glover started, like other merchants, importing fabrics from India

from China and exporting Japanese agricultural products, etc. But

saw the potential for coal mining, so he developed the Takashima coal mine,

which in fact you can almost see from his house here. Then he built a ship

repair dock close to Nagasaki.

He used engines and boilers to bring ships. up on a slip dock. So this was

really the beginning of the modern shipbuilding industry.

And the list just goes on and on. Please tell me that he had a connection with

the railways. He did have a connection with the railways. In 1865, Thomas

brought a miniature locomotive to Nagasaki and did a demonstration and ran

along the waterfront. And this would have been the first time for Japanese

people to understand the huge possibilities of steam locomotion.

In 1908, Glover was the first foreigner to be awarded Japan's highest civilian

honour, the Order of the Rising Sun, for his contribution to the country's

industrialisation. He died three years later, aged 73, and was buried here in

Nagasaki.

Quite close to where Thomas Glover had established a ship repair facility,

Mitsubishi established an enormous shipbuilding yard.

Glasgow had once been shipbuilder to the world. The title passed eventually to

Japan with a little help from an Aberdonian.

Amongst Thomas Glover's significant legacies was the Takashima coal mine,

intriguingly is accessed by boat.

I'm travelling 11 miles south to the extraordinary island of Hashima in the

China Sea.

Being on this boat enables me to appreciate the vastness of the inlet at

Nagasaki, its shipyards, its ship repair, its industries, its urban

thrall, a massive city facing the outside world.

My trip promises a glimpse into the early days of this country's economic

success.

Japan has produced some coal for centuries, but its industrialisation

high -grade product that could be extracted in vast quantities.

And it was found under the sea bed and could be accessed with some difficulty

from the offshore islands of Takashima, where Glover invested, and Hashima,

to which I'm bound now.

The island...

that covers just 16 acres, was abandoned in 1974 when its coal reserves ran out.

It's been preserved as a part of Japan's industrial heritage, an intriguing

sight for visitors.

My first impression of Hashima is that it's a rather forbidding place.

Amongst all this natural beauty, the incongruous high -rise buildings

that humanity was crammed together here.

to meet the needs of Japanese manufacturing.

Thank you.

In 1890, Hashima was bought by the Japanese Mitsubishi Commercial Company.

Founded as a shipping company, it soon diversified into mining to provide coal

for its fleet of steamships and for steel production.

Initially, Japanese miners settled on the island with their families.

From 1910 to 1945, forced labour was brought from Korea, which was

occupied by Japan.

Hashima is one of a number of sites connected to Japan's industrialisation

has been granted by UNESCO World Heritage Status.

This has caused controversy.

because the Republic of Korea is not satisfied with Japan's explanation of

use of enforced labour in horrendous conditions in the mine.

The first half of the 20th century casts a very long shadow.

The mine reached its peak during the post -war period. In the late 1950s,

isolated mining community had grown to over 5 ,000 people.

Minoru Kinoshita was born on the island and now worked as a guide.

This is one of the most extraordinary places I've ever been.

Describe to me what this was.

Having gone down 606 meters, you then go out under the seabed. Is that right?

What sort of coal is under there?

This coal is used to make iron.

The temperature

is over 35 degrees Celsius and the humidity is

95%. So I worked in a sauna for 8

hours.

Across 84 years, this mine produced more than 16 million tonnes of coal from

under the sea.

Slag was used to reclaim land, making space for apartment blocks, a school, a

hospital and even a cinema.

High sea walls were built to protect the island's coastline.

Minoru lived with his parents and sister here until he was 12, and I'm surprised

that he has fond memories of his childhood.

What an astonishing place. What a huge ruin.

Why were you born here? Why were you living here?

Your dad didn't like his job, but you seem quite happy about your childhood

memories.

You have been a wonderful guide. Thank you.

On this part of my journey, I've seen contrast between the sparsely populated

countryside, where tea grows in picturesque plantations, and the

of people and manpower required to produce high -volume coal.

It's striking that Japan, that industrialised so late, is still a

power in contrast to Britain.

Japan brings precision to everything that it does.

including the making of a cup of tea.

And perhaps for that reason, it is still a fabricator to the world.

Next time, with cobalt in it, will it always be blue?

Yes.

We have 300 kinds of blue.

Changing the entire country is tough.

But as mayor, you can change a city.

This answer is delightful.

You sense that you will emerge a new man.