(Around the Tokyo Bay)Rice and Samurai
When I was a student I happened to have a decent friend who happened to bring up an idea to spend a few days in an island in the south of the Tokyo Bay or just in a humble part of the Pacific Ocean.
We went there on board a ship full of young people and families going to spend their summer holidays on the island well known as a suitable spot for surfing.
I could not remember what I specifically did and what my friend specifically did on the island. He was not a type of guy who would frankly speak to a young woman in a tourist site or get absorbed in surfing or marine sports, since he was an elite student (the fact of which had to be, or was had better have, hidden in most of communications with strangers in those days).
Besides, in a next room of a Japanese-style tourist home we lodged in, a family of a young couple and a little child took up their quarters. They looked like having narrowly secured their summer holidays while working hard as humble and poor members of the laboring class in the Japanese society.
So, I think I was spending my own time there, riding on a rental bicycle, moving around, watching the nature and people.
Then at one point, I walked on white sands from a beach to a forest to find a small shinto shrine in it. With a white bright noon sun ahead, on the ground still covered with white shining beach sands, and surrounded by lively but tranquil green grass and tree leaves (though not of palm trees), there was a humble wooden shrine.
I really felt a very peaceful feeling there, standing and facing the old small shrine in the shade of summer greens on the white sands of an island south of Tokyo.
This is one of my memory about a serene summer vacation of decades ago.
It is so, since today is reportedly the peak of summer-holiday traffic jams in Japan, while the God has shown His displeasure to pleasure-seeking Japanese travellers over the Tokaido traffic line, the main part of Japan's transportation and industrial networks, by allowing for the occurrence of an earthquake of intensity 6 lower to shut down part of the expressway connecting Tokyo to western Japan.
http://www.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/13_11.html
SECTION I: Samurai Economy
The Edo Period or the Tokugawa Period (1603-1867) of Japan is an era when the strongest samurai clan, the Tokugawas, governed whole Japan from the capital Edo, presently Tokyo.
The economy of the Edo Period was based on a rice standard system in addition to money economy.
Farmers paid taxes with rice. A samurai lord and his family members and subjects lived on the rice, but they could also earn money by selling redundant rice in market. With the money earned this way, a samurai lord and his family members and subjects could buy commodities, goods, and products and services from market or craftsmen and merchants living in towns and streets build around a big castle where a samurai lord lived.
The Tokugawa government (led by "Shogun") and samurai lords (called "Daimyo") all over Japan sold their rice mostly in the market set up in Osaka, a central city in western Japan. Accordingly, Osaka became the only major city that bore comparison with Edo in terms of economy, commerce, and culture, though the imperial capital Kyoto is not far from Osaka.
In this market system, dealing in futures, credit dealing, and other modern business sachems were fully developed in the Japanese society. The Tokugawa samurai elite tried to put the market under its control, but the sword could not win the power of free market. The huge rice trade market in Osaka grew as a free market.
Coins were struck and issued by the Tokugawa regime, as the central government, to circulate them nationwide. But, each samurai lord published his own unique bills (a kind of banknotes called "Han-satsu") that could only circulate in his territory. Even major merchants published their own unique bills ("Shi-satsu") allowed to use in their trade.
The Tokugawa Government issued three types of coins: gold, silver, and copper ones. But, the gold coins were mainly circulated in Edo and eastern Japan while the silver coins in Osaka and western Japan. (A large gold mine was in Sado north of Edo, but a large gold mine was in Iwami west of Osaka, both on the Sea of Japan.) In this way, Japan was clearly divided into the west (Osaka bloc) and the east (Edo bloc) economically just until 140 years ago.
(http://www.abura-ya.com/naruhodo/rekishi/rekish16.html)
It's time for the Japanese Government today to review merits of the rice standard system as well as "Han-satsu" and "Shi-satsu" bills allowed to circulate in a specified and restricted zone.
Indeed, structural reform in any country should be based on exhaustive study on its unique environment, culture, and history (due to a lack of which the so-called Japan's Koizumi reformation is yet to result in success after eight years of his and his successors' eras).
Truly, economists in the U.S., the U.K., and China and India should study the Japanese history before commenting on anything related to the Japanese economy.
SECTION II: Taira-Minamoto War: The First Major War among Samurai Clans
(To be conrinued...)
(Près de mes ancêtres "terre d'origine, ma princesse, il est le plus grand et le plus ancien sanctuaire sacré du shintoïsme, though it is not north of Tokyo. I can visit it if in autumn, winter, or spring as it is by the sea...
http://www.asahi-net.or.jp/~UD3T-KRYM/902-jasrac/121-hokkikou.htm )
Mar 8:13 And he left them, and entering into the ship again departed to the other side.
Mar 8:14 Now the disciples had forgotten to take bread, neither had they in the ship with them more than one loaf.
Mar 8:15 And he charged them, saying, Take heed, beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, and of the leaven of Herod.