Since 1985, once every year, the shopping mall that leads to the Sengen Shrine in Shizuoka is closed to traffic and comes alive for the Nagamasa Matsuri (Festival), an occasion to celebrate the local hero and the friendship between Japan and Thailand. It displays exotic food and Thai boxing. Mr. Suzuki, a librarian in his 30s, is the one who organizes the cultural corner of the festival. Together with a few other local scholars, he is constantly involved in the study of Yamada Nagamasa’s deeds.
Mr. Inue is the only resident of the reconstructed Japanese village in Ayutthaya, Thailand. He manages a small souvenir shop that also features a small museum, with a miniature reproduction of the village in its heyday, a reproduction of Nagamasa’s ship, the head of the Japanese Buddha that was excavated in the 1930s and a kami-like statue of Nagamasa that is adorned with garlands. The statue towers over a charity-box collecting money for different causes. Across from the Menam (the Chao Phraya River) there is a reconstruction of the Portuguese village, on the opposite shore of the Nihonmachi. The Dutch village is under reconstruction.
The search for Nagamasa ends in Nakhon Si Thamarat where, in a quiet park, an obelisk stands in remembrance of the Japanese who perished in the Southern city in 1630. It is a recent feature, built thanks to Thai students who returned to their home country after spending a few years in Japan. Whether its location is correct or not, we don’t know, but it points up to the sky under which Nagamasa and his community prospered almost 400 years ago.
Further reading:
- Chris Baker, Dhiravat na Pmbejram, Alfons van der Kraan, David K. Wyatt. (2005) Van Vliet’s Siam. Chiang Mai, Silkworm
- Michael W. Charney. (2004) Southeast Asian Warfare, 1300-1900. Leiden and Boston: Brill
- Prince Rajanubhab Damrong. (2001) Our Wars with the Burmese, Thai Burmese Conflict 1539-1767. Bangkok: White Lotus
Resources: “Samurai of Ayutthaya – The Historical Landscape of
Early 17th Century Japan and Siam: Yamada Nagamasa
and the Way to Ayutthaya” by Cesare Polenghi (p. 66-67)
