The Golden Country (Ogon no kunit by SHUSAKU ENDO translated from the Japanese by FRANCIS MATHY , adapted for radio by JOHN TYDEMAN with Hugh Burden and Robert Lang Why did Christopher Ferreira , a Portuguese missionary. Provincial of Japan, and Superior of all the Jesuits working in that country, apostatise in 1633? This play, based on the facts of the persecution of Japanese Christians in the 17th century, poses that question! It also presents the conflict between an eastern and a western culture - a conflict which Japan then, as now, found it hard to resolve.