Senganen Garden (Photo: © K.P.V.B.)

(Writer: Michiko Kodama)

In addition to import from afar, a large number of individuals engraved in the history of Japan's late 19th century modernization came from Satsuma (the former name of Kagoshima). The world famous Takamori Saigo, Toshimichi Okubo, and Heihachiro Togo are all Satsuma Hayato (Satsuma Clansman) and statues of some of these and other noted figures can be found in the city - statues an aspect of culture popular in the west that has never really spread in cities such as Tokyo and Osaka with a few exceptions. One Satsuma Ogojyo (a Kagoshima dialect word meaning a woman originally from Kagoshima) of old who hit headlines in the modern-era because of a 2008 TV drama is Atsuhime – the adopted daughter of Shimadzu, the chief of the Satsuma clan. Atsuhime later married the 13th Tokugawa Shogun during the Edo-era (1603-1867).

One of the descendants of Atsuhime currently works in a beautiful Japanese landscape garden in Kagoshima named Senganen where she serves Japanese powdered green tea while wearing a kimono. The park was once used as a villa by the Shimadzu family, and is one of the most delightful sightseeing attractions in the region; designed to 'borrow' Kinko Bay with Mt. Sakurajima in the background and to make them a part of its own scenery by likening them to a miniaturized form mountain and pond.