Yodoya Tatsugoro Merchant Culture
Final Paper (Yodoya Tatsugoro) by Luis D. U. Colina
Luis David U. Colina
JPN 3500/Professor Kubota
4/29/2015
Yodoya Tatsugoro
Abstract Yodoya Tatsugoro was one of the greatest merchants of Osaka within the Edo period. Making immense profits from the great merchant society rising at the time. Being witty for business yet spending much of his time with prostitutes. Thou not much is written about him, he is known as one of the richest persons in the past 1000 years. Either he was extremely lucky or had something special. The purpose of the PowerPoint and paper is to examine the merchant culture in depth and see what makes Yodoya Tatsugoro a person worth remembering. We will take a deeper look at: 1) how the merchants came to be …show more content…
I specialized in the trade of silk and rice, yet those were not all the areas available. The merchants were covering every area thinkable, assuring that all of societies needs were met well and efficiently while turning a profit. There were tinkers, which would repair metal products. Anything from kettles and pots, to recycling metals and welding. Used-paper buyers, which buy old books or papers and sold them to paper makers. Truss hoop repairers, which would repair the wooden barrels in which water is stored. These wooden barrels would leak after being used for many years. Ceramic repairers, which would fix and glue broken ceramic pieces together, using a sticky coagulation made from rice. Used-clothes dealers, these help the recycle hand woven fabrics. Candle wax buyers would recycle the droppings from lit candles. Ash buyers, which buy ashes of all sorts and trade them to farmers as fertilizer. One of my least favorite, yet very significant and essential to society, the human waste dippers, they are those who work in gathering the night soil. These merchants would collect human waste from small families, landlords, and people of higher positions. They would trade the waste as a valuable resource to farmers for the fertilizing purposes. There is competition at times as to which soil is better for fertilizing the ground. The ones offered by high classes, middle classes, or lower classes. Quite an interesting competition which would at times cause the prices of night soil to fluctuate. There was sometimes the casual singing collectors, which would wonder around singing and proclaiming what they wanted to trade in hopes to exchange something simple for a valuable item. Offering children toys or candies for pieces of metal or silver that they could find around (JSF Staff). There were many other areas of trade, after all every single corporation, industry, company, and citizen in Japan
Luis David U. Colina
JPN 3500/Professor Kubota
4/29/2015
Yodoya Tatsugoro
Abstract Yodoya Tatsugoro was one of the greatest merchants of Osaka within the Edo period. Making immense profits from the great merchant society rising at the time. Being witty for business yet spending much of his time with prostitutes. Thou not much is written about him, he is known as one of the richest persons in the past 1000 years. Either he was extremely lucky or had something special. The purpose of the PowerPoint and paper is to examine the merchant culture in depth and see what makes Yodoya Tatsugoro a person worth remembering. We will take a deeper look at: 1) how the merchants came to be …show more content…
I specialized in the trade of silk and rice, yet those were not all the areas available. The merchants were covering every area thinkable, assuring that all of societies needs were met well and efficiently while turning a profit. There were tinkers, which would repair metal products. Anything from kettles and pots, to recycling metals and welding. Used-paper buyers, which buy old books or papers and sold them to paper makers. Truss hoop repairers, which would repair the wooden barrels in which water is stored. These wooden barrels would leak after being used for many years. Ceramic repairers, which would fix and glue broken ceramic pieces together, using a sticky coagulation made from rice. Used-clothes dealers, these help the recycle hand woven fabrics. Candle wax buyers would recycle the droppings from lit candles. Ash buyers, which buy ashes of all sorts and trade them to farmers as fertilizer. One of my least favorite, yet very significant and essential to society, the human waste dippers, they are those who work in gathering the night soil. These merchants would collect human waste from small families, landlords, and people of higher positions. They would trade the waste as a valuable resource to farmers for the fertilizing purposes. There is competition at times as to which soil is better for fertilizing the ground. The ones offered by high classes, middle classes, or lower classes. Quite an interesting competition which would at times cause the prices of night soil to fluctuate. There was sometimes the casual singing collectors, which would wonder around singing and proclaiming what they wanted to trade in hopes to exchange something simple for a valuable item. Offering children toys or candies for pieces of metal or silver that they could find around (JSF Staff). There were many other areas of trade, after all every single corporation, industry, company, and citizen in Japan