Date

2022-12-21, Wednesday

Distance

24.87 km biked (3882.63 km in total)

We woke at the roadside station under a grey, dripping sky, the sea still hidden in mist. The air smelled of salt and wet earth, and the hills around Higashishitsu seemed to dissolve into the fog. It was the perfect weather to step into the world of Shusaku Endo (1923 –1996).

The Endo Shusaku Literary Museum stands quietly above the coast, its wide windows facing the same grey waves that had once inspired the author. Endo, often called Japan’s foremost Christian novelist, in his masterpiece, Silence, tells of Portuguese missionaries in 16th century Japan, their struggles with persecution, betrayal and the silence of God in the face of human suffering. For over two centuries under Tokugawa persecution, believers here had disguised their faith — praying to Jesus in the rhythm of Buddhist chants, carving Marian statues in the likeness of Kannon, and passing fragments of their faith from parent to child in whispered secrecy. These fishing villages and ridges were not abstractions in the novel — they were living ground, heavy with memory.

Inside, the hush of the galleries seemed to mirror that silence. We lingered over manuscripts and letters, but more than any display, it was the framed window at the reading room that transfixed us: beyond the glass, the restless grey sea stretched out endlessly. How could fragile wooden ships from Portugal have ever reached this jagged coast? It felt uncanny to stand in the very landscape that had seeded the novel.

In the guestbook, I left my own reflection:

As I put down the pen, I felt as though I had left a part of myself there — a quiet acknowledgment of how Endo’s words had shaped my own spiritual journey and subsequent physical travel. Although I am still not a Christian, or religious in any sense of the word, my journeys had indeed brought me to a kind of 'rediscovery of faith' — not in God, but rather in humanity itself, revealed on the road through the kindness of strangers. Leaving those words behind felt like a small offering, but one that seemed to belong in that place overlooking the sea.

At the gift shop, I indulged myself in a small treasure hunt. Alongside volumes of Endo's literary corpus were exhibition catalogues from years past and even a facsimile of Silence's original manuscript. Endo’s neat yet vigorous penmanship faithfully reproduced. Such finds, unavailable anywhere online, felt like a secret trove waiting for travellers who had come all the way to this secluded corner.

By noon we mounted our bicycles again, wheels splashing through puddles. The rain has stopped yet the sky remains grey. Riding toward Nagasaki, cars often honked encouragingly, and strangers offered unexpected gifts: a woman handed us fried chicken, while a man pressed several thousand yen into our hands, urging us to eat well and keep our strength. Against the backdrop of sleet, rain, and endless climbs, such kindness felt overwhelming. It made us resolve to give back what we had received someday. It was a reminder that my 'faith in humanity,' rediscovered on the road years ago in Canada and deepened again here in Japan, continues to be nourished by these simple yet profound gestures.

The road grew busier as we approached the city of Nagasaki. Bridges arched across rivers, trams clattered through streets, and suddenly the quiet of the countryside gave way to the bustle of a city long shaped by encounters with the outside world — Portuguese traders, Dutch merchants, Chinese scholars, American occupiers. Few Japanese cities feel so cosmopolitan, so layered with the meeting of cultures.

By evening we checked into our lodging. While drifting to sleep, we were aware that tomorrow would bring us face to face with another silence — the silence left in the wake of the atomic bomb.