Rice Riots at Coal Pits (Yama) #1: Struggle for Reduction in the Price of Rice with a Useless Brimmed Rice Cooking Pot and Rice Paddles
1958 - 1963

Yama no Kome-sodo #1: Hagama-gassen, Shakushi-kaze)
[Rice Riots at Coal Pits (Yama) #1: Struggle for Reduction in the Price of Rice with a Useless Brimmed Rice Cooking Pot and Rice Paddles]
20.9 x 30.1 cm Ink Painting

In the spring of 1918, 1 sho (1.4 kg) of polished rice cost 22 sen (0.22 yen), and the price of the same quantity of rice rose to 56 sen (0.56 yen) that August. The change in the price of rice was caused by corners in the rice market by some speculators and the people in coal pits were on the verge of starvation. It was because rice cost so much that even experienced coal miners could not earn enough money to buy even 2 sho (2.8 kg) of rice a day.
The initial rice riot seeking reductions in the price of rice was started by fishermen's wives in Toyama City and similar riots spread throughout Japan. The embers of discontent also exploded at some coal pits in the Chikuho region and rice riots began to break out here and there.
(Women pit workers in this picture are not dancing to michibayashi musical accompaniment, but are desperately crying over the famine prices of rice.)

Senryu (seventeen-syllabled witty and comical poem) at the Bottom Left
Kome no ne ga agari fukidasu shakushi-kaze

The wind called shakushi-kaze (the wind caused by rice paddles being waved) began to blow because of the inflation of the price of rice

[Translator's Notes: This picture shows women pit workers and a child in protest against the rise in the price of rice. One of the women is waving an empty rice basket and others are each waving rice paddles (shakushi) like fans. The child is lifting a rice bowl to receive rice falling from the sky. The white Chinese character on a dark background of smoke means "rice." A rice cooking pot with a brim (hagama) and the lid are both put upside-down on the ground.]


Translation Assisted by Mr. Nathan Johndro

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