Why is a Japanese town this red? Nagasaki's Lantern Festival, held at the Lunar New Year, lights the city with some fifteen thousand Chinese lanterns, bathing the whole town in red light. It began as the local Chinatown's celebration of the Lunar New Year and has grown into a citywide event. Nagasaki was the one town that stayed open to the outside world even during Japan's era of isolation, where Chinese and Dutch cultures mingled with the Japanese. The red of the lanterns, the movement of dragon dances, the Mazu procession, a Chinese scene unfolds in a Japanese port town. Foreign visitors are startled: why is this place so Chinese? The answer lies in history; a town that stayed open made other cultures its own. A town that was never afraid to mix.