12/25/2022 0 Comments Sins of the father meaningBut I decided against suicide for it would do me no good… The only reality would be the heartbreak of my mother and younger sister ”. Of life as a prostitute, in the 1920s a woman wrote in a magazine: “My companions are writhing in the ugly sewer of life all over Japan… How do you think the brothel owner treats us? They are bloodsuckers who… drive many of us to death.” Another wrote in her diary: “I kept telling myself, ‘I must kill myself, I must kill myself,’ and wrote endless numbers of suicide notes. A suicide note said “When I am reborn I will not come back as a farmer ”. The region saw 4,521 girls sold to brothels, 2,196 to geisha houses, and 17,260 signed contracts for factories and mills. ![]() ![]() A village in Iwate prefecture had 50 percent infant mortality rate while half the population of 900,000 was on the brink of starvation. During the famine of 1934, 70-80 percent of Aomori prefecture were living like animals. In the northern prefectures, famines were “… almost a commonplace occurrence.” They barely survive in normal years, and so are hit especially hard in bad times from the Tokugawa era where bodies of those who starved to death blocked roads for miles along the Tsugaru Peninsula, to the Meiji era, to the Taishou era (1912-1926), to even the early Shouwa era (1926-1989). Daughters were sent to cotton and silk factories, or sold to brothels in Japan and overseas. Poet Kitamura Toukoku (1868-1894) lamented that all the government did was say “… work harder…” Peasants lost their lands, swarmed the cities to beg and steal. In the modernized Meiji era (1868-1912) of 1884-1885, the entire nation was gripped by severe famines. Close to half a million peasants died of starvation in the Tokugawa era during extreme famines. Theirs was a tortured existence of tyranny poverty disease malnourishment parasites famines. “Hard labor without chains-to which one remained bound by necessity and from which only death could bring release.” They bore the brunt of Japan’s modernization: by 1892, 85.6 percent of government revenue was their tax. The Meiji Restoration made life worse-instead of rice the peasants now paid their land tax in money-making them vulnerable to rice’s changing price. ![]() Historian Mikiso Hane observed: “… 6 percent of the population expropriates 50 percent of the land’s bounty, and leaves over 80 percent of the population to subsist on what remains… ”Ī Bakufu official in the 18th century: “Sesame seeds and peasants are very much alike, the more you squeeze them, the more you can extract from them. ”įor the 268 years of the Tokugawa period (1600-1868) the Japanese peasants-who made up 80 percent of the population -their sole purpose for existence was to work the land for the samurai. ![]() Japanese cotton picking peasants (Source: Flickr/ Okinawa Soba (Rob) ) The peasant bowed as if in great fear and apologized profusely, but was unable to mount his horse in front of a samurai. Fukuzawa insisted that nowadays anyone can keep on riding horses no matter who they ran into, that’s the law. The samurai on the ¥10,000 bill-Fukuzawa Yukichi (1834-1901) -ran into a peasant shortly after the Meiji Restoration (1868 ) : Seeing him, the peasant immediately jumped off his horse.
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