When I was a kid, my dad often told me his childhood stories.
One of the impressive things in his stories was about his experience of a nature disaster when he was around 22.
My dad was the fourth child out of 9 brothers & sisters. so including his parents ( my grandfather and grandmother ) total of 11 people were living together .
In his generation, most people were poor with many children each family.
Because after the world war 2, Japan lost so many people, so they were told by the government to have many kids as much as they could.
In 1953, there was a serious nature disaster which came from heavy rain & typhoon in the Kyushu area ( South side of Japan ) where my dad had lived.
My dad was a university student at that time, and when he came back to his home, his house was washed away and there was nothing in the property .
His mother ( my grandmother ) and one of his sisters ( my aunt ) survived by sticking to the house while it was taken by the storm.
They lost all the stuff including the house.
My dad told me that all his family members including my dad started building their new house by themselves.
I was impressed with him and his family's mental toughness and also they had the skill to build their own house by themselves without hiring carpenters and construction workers.
Knowledge and skills are treasure when it is used well.
There are so many things I don't know how to make , create in the world.
Many people wish to be rich,
but when I think about when we want to buy a house or a building, if there is no one who can build them, what is the money can do in the situation ?
Same thing as food, if no one can prepare food, we can not buy food.
Same for all the other things.
There are people who have knowledge to make all the things we need to live in our life, so we can live.
and then,
it reminds me of 19th century's Japanese tenant farmers stories.
There was an unfairness system for property landlords and tenant farmers in that generation.
Not only Japan, but many other countries were in the same situation at that time, and in earlier generations.
Tenant farmers made rice in the farm which was rented by their landlord.
But they had to give 50% of the rice they made every year to their landlord.
It's hard to live with only this amount of rice for one family every year, so tenant farmers had to rent some rice from their landlord.
Landlord offered them rice with high interest.
It was still not enough to survive, so they had to mix the rice with radish , called radish-rice.
With this system, tenant farmers life were never getting better and always lived while hungry.
To earn money to take care of family, many girls were sold, or working as a servants for a wealthy family, or worked for silk mill factories which they spent their days enduring hard work and cruel treatment.
They were working 12 hours a day and many girls got serious illnesses and lost their life.
There was not much choice to live for girls at that time.
Freedom was a dream.
They earned money but it all went to their family.
Tenant farmer's kids were not allowed to go to school because they needed to help their family.
Whoever was against the system, they were arrested.
and most of tenant farmers were brainwashed to appreciate to the landlord to be able to live.
So parents of tenant farmers were not protesting the system.
Landlords could eat rice because of farmers.
Landlords could eat rice because of farmers.
Rice manufacturers could live because there were farmers who can make rice.
If there is no one who can make food , material things, houses, building, anything which helps our lives, we can not live , unless getting the knowledge to make themselves.
Even in this generation,
I wonder people who are making foods & stuff which is necessary to live, are they getting the most benefits ?
When I read about history, I feel how blessed I am.
Nobody can live well without farmers , carpenters, construction workers, artists who make hand carvings, furniture, electricians, maintenance men, trash removing workers, factory workers and so on.
They are all super valuable occupations and workers so I respect their work so much.
Hopefully, someday there will be a more fair money system, so that workers in these fields can get more appreciation, same as successful sports players, musicians, entertainers, investors, business and finance experts and so on.