thanks for the content man!

I'm glad that, that engineering degree is being put to good use.

Will thehitorians land in rice hell?!

Ah the old trick of saying your a serf that's a farmer, when you're really a craftsman letting your brother farm your steed for you as you pay taxes in crafts to the lord and keep the produce to sell. Historically knights where brutal enforcement of taxes for a reason, peasants really didn't like paying them. Unless you forced or gave them some ridiculous request to elect an official that totally won't down spiral to end the systems inplace.

Please make video on the New Pokemon: Legends Arceus game. It has several sidequests that are rooted in Japanese folklore.

I guess historians don't know much about agriculture. :3

Most people being farmers =/= farming bring the only thing people did. A pre-industrial society means most people _are_ farmers (and/or herders/fishers/etc) but _also_ doing other crafts. "Cottage industry" is a common term for much of that in Europe and Japan would be no different. Taxes get paid in, well, whatever the government accepts as taxes, and since a feudal government needs just about anything, could be paid in just about anything. Specific arrangements differed, by location of course and generally you wanted to produce as much of your food in the local region as possible (as it tends to be harder to transport a given value in food than a given value in iron, for example), but once you're near-ish subsitance level for food production, you're just making what you can. Farming puts nearly all hands on deck for planting and harvest time, but has more to do with regional population density than directly producing wealth Though higher population density tends to support increased specialization of labor, which can increase that, of course, but no farmers really did _only_ farming. (And also, waterways generally facilitate travel, not block it, so I'm not sure where anyone gets the idea where a little bit of water isolates a community)

like wall painters watching paint dry

They might go fish or something, I reckon. Paddies often had fish as well.

@@dynamicworlds1 just gonna say, this comment deserves far more upvotes, as it manages to be frankly more informative than the video :/

…the rock sealing a yokai just broke… their population is growing.

Glad I'm not the only one intrigued by it. I'm like, "are we talking about kitsune, tanuki, and others here?"

If only the truth were so light, the world would be a brighter place. Unfortunately, that percentage is not made up, instead it refers to the _Burakumin,_ the lowest caste in Japanese society during the Edo Period, who performed jobs that were considered “tainted” in Japanese culture (examples include prostitutes, executioners, undertakers, butchers, tanners, plumbers, beggars, etc), and for this reason they were ostracized and made untouchable. Nobody would look at them, nobody would interact with them, and they faced heavy discrimination by the other Japanese people, who did not consider them to be Japanese, or even human, instead calling them Hinin which literally translates to “non-humans”. They were forcibly separated from the general population and made to live in Ghettos, and this status could be passed from parent to child, resulting in them effectively living in Segregation every bit as brutal as what African slaves faced in America, except that they were biologically indistinguishable from other Japanese people. This designation officially ended with the Meiji Restoration, but in practice the discrimination continued and continues into the modern day. You can find very good documentaries on the way they are treated even now, recorded with modern 4K cameras. It’s soul crushing. Because of the way they have been excluded from the more legally upstanding parts of Japanese society, and the way that they have been forced into poverty and prevented from receiving education, upward social mobility is almost impossible for them, and they thus make prime recruits for organized crime, which for many is seen as their only option as often only criminals are willing to even acknowledge their existence. Some put up to 70% of the Yakuza’s members as having belonged to this class, though it is difficult to tell if these numbers are accurate due to the heavy discrimination they face. The fact that many of them are illiterate due to the ways education was denied them means that they are rarely in a position to write their own press releases, or object to the things other people say about them. I am sure many of them would have been much happier living their life as Yokai. At least Yokai have power. Instead they are forced into a life of brutal oppression where those in power treat them as little more than cockroaches. It’s deeply sad. The common people were still treated like people, the Burakumin were not.

@@Wertsir Huh, til. But why would they discriminate against butchers? I can understand executioners, prostitutes, undertakers, anyone dealing with sewage, they were at the bottom in Europe too, but butchers? How tf are you supposed to prepare meat without them, seems like a profession that should have a bit of a higher standing.

Gods, I wish. It refers to burakumin, a social stratum that was, and secretly still is, considered subhuman. Some of them end up joining gangs or the so called yakuza because it is the only way they can make money, other means are not available to them due to discrimination. All because they did jobs that were considered dirty or impure because they involved filth or blood or, get this... the arts. Ever wondered why the red light district in Tokyo is called after a theatre style? It's because prostitutes and actors were considered part of the same group.

yeah this video is trash and very misleading.

@@mytimetravellingdog it's not tho, the thumbnail didn't say "FARMER IS ACTUALLY RARE??!!" or anything it just state that "yeah... she be a fisher, not farmer"

@Skalbird Genome Awesome non-sequitur there, mate. Is going into random videos just to talk about masks a hobby of yours?

@Skalbird Genome Given what we know of people's reactions to the Spanish Flu in the early 20th century, the discourse would be more about "These people had all the information and the science in the world, and still fell prey to the anti-mask and anti-vaxx propaganda leading to more issues they needn't have gone through". Any reasonable person abiding by mask mandates don't wear them at home or among family members, and even outside you can take a breather if there's no one around or if you're eating outside. Only idiots or anti-maskers think you need to wear masks inside when you're alone.

@Skalbird Genome Facebook is not a medical journal and memes are not research. Stop spreading medical misinformation.

Even a farmer's almanac can tell you more about common life of the past than most history books. Example: there is a day listed called Distaff Day where women were supposed to get back to spinning after the Christmas season. Spinning, weaving, quilting, woodcrafting, and a lot of blacksmithing were all done during the farming "off" season.

@@dawnmana5876 ngl living half of my year in farming stuff and half in woodcrafting and acksmithing seems to be a very neat life. Might try it

I am tempted to claim this misconception seems common across a *lot* of day to day life in medivial times. Like, how many people probably believe that lords controlled the day to day life when at best... They lent peasant land and allowed them to own a portion of the products they produce on it. Also that farmers worked every day from morning to evening in the fields. Though this *did* become a thing when quarterly rotation became a thing

@@dinamosflams our ancestors knew that living such a life was superior to working in factories. The capitalists and the state worked together to forcibly enclose the commons and drive people into hard labor in the cities. I can't wait to go back to a simpler life once we finally defeat this evil system.

@@aetherkid ... You should study more history, comrade. That "evil system" plays a big part in why you have so much free time every day.

Lol

And ppl need to remember that these chinese/east asians(yea they're technically Chinese since they all came from china region and then migrated to korea, japan, etc. Im not racist) also NOT ENTIRELY WITH PALE WHITE SKIN. Why i talk about this thing? Am i racist? NO! It's important to know about this fact because later will impact other sectors. Basically, Mongolian race have light skin but not pale white. Light brown or darker. Why? Because most of the times, they work in the field and their geographic condition is also mostly flat. And it's more worse if they're fishermen. The sun hit them harder for fishermen. Both the sea and beach area so hot. Few shades. Well not majority of them are like that. It also depends on their location. Some mongolian-chinese ethnic ppl that live in like.. Lush forest region or mountain with many shades from stones or caves tend to not that darker in skin color And because this skin color thing, many east asians "worships" the lighter skin. That's why u always find those weird cosmetic in every chinese ethnic society ancient artworks(china, japan, korea, vietnam. But vietnam is more like the "low chinese". Same with thailand). It's about... some of their women wear that thick white powder on their face. Especially the famous one is from Japanese artworks. Especially for pr0st1tute or courtesan girls. And besides that pale white cosmetic tradition thing, the female also prefer to be in their home. One of the reasons is to avoid their skin color getting darker. And with this logic, that's when u know a person is from low or higher class. High class people aka the nobles tend to be in their house. So their skin color tend to be lighter. And about this lighter skin color thing keep continues even up until now. And i feel bad for modern humankind lol. Especially those spoiled brats. With the climate crisis getting more intense, it's harder for them to keep their light skin. Except if they be like.. 24/7 always in their home. Which is impossible except if you're a rich spoiled brat 🤣 Now the most whitest i think the Koreans there. Korean seems like the most chinese than the chinese in china, man. Eyes narrowest, nose "shortest", palest skin. Again, all of this are not for racism stuff. It's to clear the misunderstanding. To clear some false informations. If u cant believe me, go find any of colored photos about Chinese ethnic ppl in the past. On KZfaq. You may see many of them are actually brown skinned. Like.. even in 1950s or something, many of them still brown skinned. Light skinned trend in chinese/east asian ethnic society started since after the world war i guess. Like what happen to some Japanese in Japanese stories that take place in theie medieval time or even ancient time. Like Kimetsu no Yaiba there for example. Lol. Lots of light skinned Japanese there, bruh. They all nobles or merchant?? Lot of them have pale skin there in Kimetsu no Yaiba. Tanjiro, since he's charcoal maker, his skin should be darker. Dark brown. He need to cut down a tree, collect some firewoods, and then get smoked by the charcoal burner. They all live in mountain.. which is hotter but feel cool. Nezuko too but she need to be light brown but depends tho. Do nezuko helps their family charcoal business? And this brown skinned japanese, korean, Chinese thing helps us to better understand the past. Like.. How samurai blends in with the surrounding with their brown skin. Or how ninja blend well with their brown skin. It's weird for ninja to have white skin, right? Imagine. And more. More application that based on this darker skin thing. Even some Japanese dont know about their own history... poor them. Trapped inside their own small world.. not knowing about their history and the world. But sometimes, ignorance is a bless. Soo it's also can be a good thing i guess. And you can see this "whitening" process on African as well(besides the mixbred between African-European). Look at Africans that born in America n Europe continent. And now, it's the Southeast Asian Malays. Malay region now getting richer so their ppl also getting whiter there. BUT again, remember, climate crisis getting worse and worse each year.

🤣🤣🤣🤣. This was a comment section about poop!

@@DBT1007 You, too, are a poop baron, I see

@@DBT1007 also for the last comment of course people of other skin would become the same skin as everyone else through generations you have to remember all humans were originaly black from south africa but because of their locations afther migration it took european humans only 20k years to become white so eventually no matter of migration the skin color will adapt to the geographical location

Good thing this guy came along to remind the Japanese of who they really were, always sad to see a people living in ignorance of themselves.

:0

​@paintedweasels what makes you think he isn't of Japanese ancestry? It's a voice, with a slight accent.

Thats not really accurate as far as Rome is concerned. Taxes in Imperial Rome were not assessed by grain alone or even primarily. Indeed, Imperial Rome in fact gave out a subsidy of grain, which was taken directly from Egypt - a luxury they could afford as Egypt was little more than a slave plantation owned by the Emperor. Most Roman farms indeed were dedicated to cash crop production - olives for oil and wine for grapes being the most common crops. And both required fairly time-consuming processing after harvest to turn into the end product; which is why the labor for these farms were generally slaves rather than freedmen. Indeed, the prohibitive cost of paid labor for farms was a big reason so many Romans ended up in the Legions - the plantation owners didn't want to pay for labor, so free citizens often had little choice but to sign up for the Legions to get money.

Late 19th century fiction is a heavily romanticized view of country life written by people who didn't actual work it, as a reaction to the "modern degradation" of urban life. It's not an accurate portrayal of real life. All of those time periods you mention, Tsarist Russia, Imperial Rome, etc, had agriculture heavily "subsidized" by the work being often done by slaves or serfs or other forms of unpaid labor. Because agricultural work effing sucks. So was the textile production.

@@Lolibeth My bad: I was referring more to literature from my own country at that time, and it was usually written by people who grew up in a peasant environment themselves, or who at least had much more knowledge about it than the Victorians you describe. It was also largely a country of peasant smallholders. I never said subsistence agriculture was a picnic, but early industrial life was unambiguously worse. People only moved to the cities because they were physically forced out of the countryside.

It's my understanding that wet-rice farming is more intensive (as far as necessary monitoring and adjusting each paddy) than wheat farming.

Apparently Iceland had a cloth-based money/tax system hundreds of years ago.

Nice lol. Did the lord charge a toll for others to use his elevator too?

@@Linfamy yes. Of course. It required a lot of manpower to get the logs across the mountain...

The Holy Roman Emperor ruled over a collection of toll booths just like the President of France rules over a collection of toll motorways.

Was it the HRE?

@@mh-tw4kx most likely

Clickbait is click bait.

Imagine all historians agreeing on something.

@Banni While I agree with the sentiment, I think Linfamy (real name Linh) is actually Vietnamese. Though I admit that's drawing from nothing more than what he looks like, his accent and his name being Linh.

@Banni I don't actually disagree with/am not surprised by any of the things in your response, but it's kind of weird to be like "I wasn't talking about the video" when responding to a comment responding to the video. Within the context, it is reasonable to assume you were mistaken as to Linh's identity (I had also previously assumed he was European). I also opened my comment with 'I agree with the sentiment', you probably should've been able to draw from that where I stood.

@@sarahtwycross422 I think Linfamy is either Chinese or Vietnamese. Cool history Bro is a Chinese.

they didn't, what historians says is that ~70% of the population worked on the food chain. i.e farmers, cooks, fishers, people that produce tools for farmings etc.

The point of the video wasn't that Japanese historians didn't believe in the complexity of the medieval Japanese economy. The point was that there was a general scarcity of records and documents regarding specifically those specialized sectors, while documents regarding rice were highly prevalent in comparison. The revelation was in finding those records in previously overlooked places, which then provided historians with a furthered understanding of those sectors and the lives of the people who worked in them. He even acknowledges this in the video by saying "Who made the noodles?", instead of "Did they make noodles?". Historians of course knew of other sectors in the medieval Japanese economy, the issue was just the lack of documents specifically regarding them.

Yeah, these are not fun times :/

@@Linfamy Indeed u_u

Came here to say the same and found your post lol

Yeah. Ruble joke was gigacringe tho.

@@Linfamy back then as a kid i used to think them as ice cream people cus they are wearing those cone shaped helmets and i think are they wearing wafers.

How is the art called, am curious to look it up myself.

Welcome to the rabbit hole, friend

@@samuraiboi2735 W A F E R H A T

Great explanation.

"people in charge focused so much on farming in its tax records" Likely due to the fact that agriculture underpins 100% of society and not producing enough or poor management leads to famine. Energy, in this case food energy, is the basing of all civilization, and indeed existence. Keeping a good accounting of your food supply seems to be the wisest choice that could be made.

Woohoo, good luck with your studies

Good job with the vtubing translations

えとおお、あなたのなまえのかんじはねこじゃないよ

@@herman1francis そうです。猫「ねこ」じゃありません。名前は「寝込む（ねこむ）」のねこなんです。

@@Nekomikuri あなたのなまえはねこむですか？ ゆるしてください、にほんごじょうずじゃない

Problem is when your standard is backed by staple crops and unsurprisingly not inedible currency people think your economic system is primitive

Well, it's just not true. Historians didn't disregard other crafts, no medieval historian would claim such a thing; the fact is, and it goes against the sentiment of this video - a large percentage of Japan's population was indeed occupied with rice farming. Japanese farmers also fished, traded, knew how to build, knew carpentry, sewing, how to make pottery and so on. They were self-sufficient. Specialized laborers like smiths, jewelers, horse breeders, and other craftsmen, were marginal and generally confined to the cities.

@@IskenderAl didn't the video say most people did farm, they just had other jobs that the nobles of feudal society dismissed as part-time occupations? Like a parent calling you a profession because of your degree rather than your actual employment

Modern historians were the ones taking into account the mistakes of the earlier ones.

It's not true. No one could possibly think that. You know. Because Japanese metal goods exist. Farming is seasonal and people who do farm as an occupation can do multiple things in addition to that. This is how just about every pre-industrial sedentary society has worked. The idea that they weren't farmers at all is a bad take away promoted by the sensationalist presentation.

It's probably better to just call them gardeners

Peas--means country (from patria--pays in French), while -ant is like the ing ending in English. Hence pedant, pendant, mendicant, assistant, etc. A cognate would be paisano in Italian ("fellow countryman"). The reason this word comes to mean "tenant farmer" is because during medieval and modern/early modern Europe, lands would frequently be ruled by royal families from very far away. They often didn't even speak the local language at all (for an egregious example, look at Russian nobility).

@@francisnopantses1108 "Pays" - French for country - came from "pagus," Latin for district. A French "paysan" lived in the country. In Latin "pagensis" meant rural. Nowadays "pagan" has changed a little to mean the old religion, not the countryside religion.

They got to make themselves feel better because they can't believe they are still peasants in the grand scheme of things.

or roughly 1,120,234.35 JPY

Yeah, the joke is sadly a wishful thinking.

The Russian exchange rate is manufactured, official black market rate would be lower. Also, you probably have a problem exchanging rubles for legal tender in foreign countries.

and thus a new ricist was born...

I don’t know….that would mean I have to give up some of my noodles!

It's a two-step mistranslation. The proper contextual translation for hyakushou is peasant, not farmer. In fact, this is the proper scholarly translation for the term as well. My guess is someone in the Linfamy team made a second association that peasant = farmer then directly translated hyakushou as farmer.

>How those modern Japanese historians thought "hyakushou" means only "farmer" means they barely know anything about their own language. or, the guy who made this video is being totally misleading bc literally every japanese historian knew there was division of labor in feudal japan, there was no "grave mistake"

In the past, commoners in Japan didn't have surnames.

Things from China can become different things in Japan. For example, Shogun (将军) means military general that serve the monarch in China, but it became the title of a hereditary military dictator (the head of the Samurai) in Japan.

@@jackjackyphantom8854 Well that's because most Japanese "emperors" and their court were inept so the head generalissimo TOOK OVER in Japan. The shogun was still giving face to the emperor's court & was still officially "the general" even though he wielded all political power. Also, 天皇 was a Tang Dynasty era term for the Chinese emperor ("Celestial Sovereign") but I mean, the Japanese 'tennou' was king at best on that little island nation. Hardly an "emperor" LOL. Or perhaps he functioned as a "pope" did in medieval Europe, mostly there for ritual & religious purposes.

Success!

I fell for the same trick. 😭

Crud; didn't realize how late it was until I hit this thread ... Thankfully, I am retired, so I don't have to worry about when I retire.

Hey thanks for the kind words, you have a good day 😉👍

@@Linfamy holy crap you responded. 😮 You have a good day as well! Keep it going, dude! If I may, what's your next video gonna be about?? 😱

Boom. I just published a new one 5 mins ago 😂

The salt thing is a side effect of the "Chinese bias" in East Asian historiography. A CHINESE salt-producing center was very likely to be poor and with very undiversified economy because salt was a state monopoly in China. The salt made the state rich but the people producing the salt had no recourse to sell it and actually profit from it, so they're always poor. Only during times of turmoil and dynastic replacement would an opportunity arise for salt makers to become entrepreneurs and even then usually salt gangs would take control of their communities first. East Asian historians therefore used to view salt production in their own countries as being very similar to the Chinese situation, but of course we now know that in Japan the salt monopoly never worked out so salt was a freely traded commodity that made salt producing towns rich.

who in their right mind would think that japan didnt have division of labor during those times? everybody knows about traditional japanese artisanship, everybody knows japan has always relied heavily on fishing, most people know how important salt was esp to preserve food before refrigeration and as other comments have pointed out, japanese historians have always known this when you really think about it this video is pretty ridiculous

Emperor Commodus

Japan was about as closed off from the outside world as it was a nation made up of just rice farmers. Sakoku "locked country" is a modern term and idea. Trade in Edo period Japan existed under the Kaikin regulations. Which was basically just a tweaked version of Ming dynasty Chinese Haijin laws. So basically international trade and travel in Japan was regulated in similar ways to China, Korea, and the Ryukyu kingdom. Japan did large volumes of trade with China, Korea, Ezo , and the Ryukyu kingdom. They did especially huge amounts of trade with China directly through Nagasaki which had large local Chinese populations, Chinese owned factories, Chinese temples, local China towns, etc. as well as very large amounts of goods brought in indirectly through the Manchuria / Ezo "Santan" trade, through China / Ryukyu kingdom tribute trade, as well as through China / Korea trade. Of course in addition to smaller volumes of trade with the Dutch through Nagasaki/Dejima. (the idea for Dejima it's self was based off the small rented trading post on the island of Macau through which the Chinese made the Portuguese conduct trade.)

@@TeaSerpent history just keeps getting more and more complex. actually; history is ridiculously complex, i just keep finding out more and more interesting stuff about it.

@@strider_hiryu850 Of course history is very complex, imagine thinking of how complex the current year is and multiply that by how many years you're going back to the past.

Who ever believed that? Who did you talk to? Couldn't have been a historian. This video is pretty awful. No economy exists on farming alone. And yet Japan was an agrarian society. Just as early America was and most of Europe was. They had industries, but they were mostly agrarian.

@@enderoctanus so this video is awful. because Japan was mostly agrarian, with some more industrial... industries. which is exactly what this video teaches. meaning this video is awful. hmmmmm. get off the internet, you 4 year old.

Woohoo!

I feel sorry for stupid peasants. Tanking the Rubble isn't some show off benevolence of the west for Ukraine. Large investment corporations are buying them up on the cheap knowing the war will end and they're war profiteering will have been a great success.

@@josephjohnson5415 cancel culture typing.....

I disliked the video for complaining about "Offensive stereotypes" ahilew using anti-russian propaganda. Nice. A million rubles could buy in Russia about ten thousand kilograms of the best rice. Perhaps in 500 years someone will have to do the "russians being warmongering poors misconception" video. Except the information is right here right now.

As a Russian, here I was clicking on this video, literally thinking "okay it's time to distract for a second, enough news, surely a video about Japanese farming history won't remind me about the current situation". FML Before you say it, yes I know Ukrainians have it worse. Yes I do feel bad and guilty for not doing enough. Yes I will be as glad as anyone when the regime falls even if the price is another decade of poverty. Please just let me vent for a second here

Also, you Polish people are cool for helping Ukrainians. And sorry for the previous comment, I really needed to vent.

If there are Rice-ists, does that mean there is going to be an Anti-Riceist movement, and best-sellers on how to be an Anti-Riceist for the wheat-eaters? All Grains Matter protests?

Sources always in the description 👍

Yep, gotta finish up Kamakura

Just shows the myth that you need international global trade to have a wealthy population.

I’m 5’2” so now you know I am taller!

Now imagine what else you're going to find out you were lied to about lol

@@WaspLife Indeed.🤔

Lol u r short

@@atlas5653 I know😭🤣

Same as any Science Research... It's always the grad students who do the hard work lol

Historians did not think that, this video is click bait

At least you were productive ;)

So what's your job?

@@Bloodlyshiva I work at a huge steel factory. My job is to grease the equipment through the whole place. With 5 buildings almost a 1/4 mile long a piece and a few smaller ones here in there. My boss gives us papers telling us what to grease. Some days we don’t get any so we drive off and chill on our phones 😎🥸. The place is so large that there are many places to chill.