Sendai, the largest city in Tohoku, enjoys a number of advantages. The climate is excellent, the average age of the population makes it one of Japan’s youngest cities, and it is also one of Japan’s greenest cities, having enjoyed the nickname “City of Trees” since before the second World War.
With a little over a million people, Sendai is also a manageable size, and its proximity to both the mountains and sea is a boon often mentioned by its citizens. The city’s history dates to 1600 when the lord of the region, Date Masamune, moved his capital here and received permission to build a castle. Though the center of the city was heavily damaged by wartime bombing, the basic street plans still follow those laid out by Masamune four hundred years ago.
The castle was, apparently, a beautiful structure. Masamune was an ardent supporter of the Momoyama style in all its florid glory, and his fortress had painted ceilings, large open rooms divided by exquisitely designed screens, and a carefully chosen site overlooking a deep ravine to the east. Unfortunately, little remains today besides portions of the outer walls and a reconstructed guardhouse, but visitors can get some idea of what the castle may have been like from a computer generated tour offered in a small museum near the castle grounds.
Masamune is remembered as an incredibly ruthless warrior, nicknamed the “One Eyed Dragon” because he had plucked out his own eye after a childhood smallpox infection. There are a hoard of stories about the savagery of his life, including a poisoning attempt by his own mother, and his murdering his brother to ensure his own succession. What is certain is that he was an energetic figure, and this character was reflected in the life of Sendai. A Spanish diplomat visiting the new city wrote that it was even busier than Tokyo.
In 1613, Sendai made one of its most important, and fascinating, contributions to world history. Masamune dispatched a delegation of 180 on a seven-year mission around the world, in which they visited Mexico, Spain, France, and Rome, where they had an audience with the Pope. Six members of the delegation stayed in Spain to avoid the Tokugawa persecution of Catholics, and hundreds of their descendents still live outside Seville today under the surname Japon. The delegation returned to Mexico and sailed home by way of the Philippines. Their mission had been to encourage both Christian missionaries and foreign technical advisers (especially mining experts) to come to Sendai, but by the time the delegation had returned home Christians were already being put to death and Japan was entering its long seclusion. With no real benefits gained, the leader of the delegation, Masamune’s retainer Hasekura Tsunenaga, died within a year of returning home, probably concealing his own Catholic faith and having seen more of the world than any Japanese would for another two and a half centuries.
Be sure to visit Masamune’s mausoleum, another Momoyama extravaganza, on a wooded hillside just down the river from the site of the castle. And if you’re lucky enough to be here between August 6th and 8th, you’ll see the city festooned with thousands of bamboo poles, hung with ornate decorations of colored paper for the Tanabata Festival, celebrating two heavenly lovers (the stars Vega and Altair) once-a-year chance to cross the Milky Way and meet. The festival is a huge draw, so expect crowds. If you need a break, slip into one of the many restaurants serving a Sendai specialty: gyu-tan, or calf’s tongue. You can get it grilled, smoked, sliced and fried or even salt cured. Draft beer and salt cured tongue. That’s what they call living the high life, fellow wanderers.
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City of Sendai
-Matt Mangham
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