P2+Artisans+and+Merchants

by Carter M. and Conner M.
 * __Artisans and Merchants: Don’t Hate Me Because I am Rich__ **

=== In the Tokagawa time period in Japan, there were two groups of people called Artisans and Merchants. These people were unique roles to play that were essential to Japanese society. They were very low class people, yet were usually wealthy. There were many types of Artisans and Merchants. Though they did not have a very different life style, they did differ in types of jobs and social status. ===

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Merchants and Artisans normally lived a comfortable life style. Merchants were one of the richest classes but could still be poor. Some Merchants made more than samurai, yet samurai was a much more honorable role. Merchants and Artisans wore modest clothing for their time; casual clothing would normally be a Kimono and some sandals. Merchants were kept away from the rest of society and had their own neighborhoods called a “Chonin”. Both Merchants and Artisans lived in houses called a “Nagaya”. Nagayas were ditches normally dug in a lane where it was easy for kids to play and for Merchants and Artisans to sell things. Samurai were often tempted to join the Merchant class because of how much money they could make. But since the Samurai were very honorable they normally did not join the class.======

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The Artisans were a lower class people. Even though the Artisans were low class they were respected in their community. On the other hand, the Merchants weren’t respected for their work, because they never contributed anything for the economy of Japan. The Artisans were not always rich and not always poor. Even though the Artisans were of the low class they could become a samurai, but a low class one. The Artisans were a higher class than the merchants because they actually created things for the Japanese culture and economy.======

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Social status for merchants: Merchants were the lowest class. They were considered a parasite in the Japanese community because they sold other peoples things and did not produce anything. Although they were the lowest class they were the wealthiest. They had their own area where they had to live so they would be separated from the rest of society. They were so much lower than samurai that merchants had their own form of entertainment that samurai were not allowed to go to, this entertainment was called Kabuki Theater.======

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There were many types of merchants in Japan during the Tokagawa time period. Some include tea merchants, rice merchants and masonry merchants. Even though they are usually rich they don’t //17// to the Japanese community because they don’t actually make things, they just sell them. This is why they were referred to as parasites by the rest of the community.======

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Artisans played a large part in Japanese society. They made a variety of things that added to Japanese culture. There are many types of artisan but there are some of high importances. There were sword smiths, sword smiths made swords for the samurai, sword smiths were a very honorable job and could even become lower samurai. There were also roofers, roofers installed roofs. These were important because without roofs there would be no protection from the weather. The last artisan is a carpenter, without carpenters there would not be proper sized wood to build castles that protected the clans from other clans.======

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Artisans and Merchants were two very unique social classes. They had an important role but were not respected. They made a difference in Japanese society and the culture and it would have been very different without them. They were not respected because they did not produce anything which is very different from the society today. Today it is about how much money you have but in the tokagawa time period it was about how much you produced or how important whatever you produced was to the society. Artisans were a little more respected than Merchants yet it depended on what type of things they made that made their social class. The Japanese society would have been tremendously impacted if there were not Artisans or Merchants.======

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**CITATIONS**
Odijk Pamela, The Japanese. "The ancient world." Englewood Cliffs, N.J. silver Burdett Press 1991. Print.

Deal William E., __"Medieval and early modern Japan"__. New York: Facts on File,Inc., 2006.

Think Quest, "Merchants and Craftsmen", Think Quest.org, Think Quest team, 2000. Web. Monday, February 2, 2010

"New Years Day in Japan-Merchants in Procession." //Harper's Weekly,17, Feb. 1872//. //Lombard Antiquarian Maps & Prints.// //Maine Country Auction. Web. 22, Feb. 2010.//