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John Lindsey
25th May 2000, 06:01
The following was taken from the book: Japanese Girls and Women by Alice Bacon (1891). I found this following section very interesting...how time have changed http://216.10.1.92/ubb/smile.gif


The dislike of anything suggestive of trade or barter — of services and actions springing, not from duty and from the heart, but from the desire of gain — has strongly tinted many little customs of the day, often misunderstood and misconstrued by foreigners. In old Japan, experience
and knowledge could not be bought and sold. Physicians did not charge for their services, but on the contrary would decline to name or even receive a compensation from those in their own clan. Patients, on their side, were too proud to accept services free, and would send to the physicians, not as pay exactly, but more as a gift or a token of gratitude, a sum of money which varied according to the means of the giver, as well as to the amount of service received. Daimio did not send to ask a teacher how much an
hour his time was worth, and then arrange the lessons accordingly. The teacher was not insulted by being expected to barter his knowledge for so much filthy lucre, but was merely asked whether his time and convenience would allow of his taking extra teaching. The request was made, not as a matter of give and take, but a favor to be granted. Due compensation.
however, would never fail to be made, — of this the teacher could be sure, — but no agreement was ever considered necessary.
With this feeling yet remaining in Japan,—this dislike of contracts, and exact charges for professional services, — we can imagine the inward disgust of the samurai at the business-like habits of the foreigners with whom he has to deal. On the other hand, his feelings are not appreciated
by the foreigner, and his actions clash with the European and American ideas of independence and self-respect. In Japan a present of money is more honorable than pay, whereas in America pay is much more honorable than a present.

Gil Gillespie
26th May 2000, 07:12
John,thanks for this new wrinkle of using a text as a topic starter. Great idea.

Samurai disdain for merchants is well documented. I don't know how much this contributed to today's Japanese approach re: money itself. When visiting a family in mourning the visitor lights insense and leaves an envelop of money at a special small altar.

Samurai stipends were phrased in kokyus(?) (units) of rice. Merchants were the lowest rung on the feudal social ladder. The bushi viewed their accruing vast wealth with condescending loathing. As the decades of Tokugawa peace rendered the samurai a social vestige, the wound to their pride became a huge insult.

With the Meiji restoration in 1868, merchant money empowered the modernization of Japan along with the even more abhorrant introduction of foreign economic and social policy. With the 1876 ban on wearing the daisho and traditional hairstyle, the samurai were officially disenfranchised.

With the exception of cash register transactions money is almost always exchanged in special envelops and we all know budo senseis never concern themselves with money (dojo sempais take care of that). I wonder how much of that relates back to samurai distaste for money.

I await replies from those more versed in this topic.

Gil Gillespie

Kolschey
26th May 2000, 14:12
I remember hearing a story about a high ranking Aikido instuctor who visited the states. After the seminar, everyone went out to dinner. At one point, the American host tried to hand over the dues for the seminar.
The visting instructor became very upset, and refused the package. It seems that the problem was not the money per se, rather, it was the breach of ettiquete in the conspicuous presentation of that money.

------------------
Krzysztof M. Mathews
" For I am the Cat who walks by himself, and all places are alike to me"
-Rudyard Kipling

John Lindsey
31st August 2003, 02:41
a post bumped from the past...

MarkF
1st September 2003, 09:41
Regardless of the bump, I just like Krzysztof's quote from the longest story from Kipling's the Jungle Book (The Cat Who Walked by Himself).


Mark

David T Anderson
1st September 2003, 15:36
Heh -- my monthly donation to our dojo is made with the cash in an envelope left without comment on Sensei's office desk. It just seems more right that way...