Hello and welcome to the History of Japan podcast.

Episode 10, A Day in the Life of Edo Japan.

This week we're going to be talking about cultural developments during the Edo period.

I figured it would be important to bring this up,

since so much of what we think of as traditional Japanese culture dates back to the Edo period.

Now, I struggled a bit with how I wanted to write this podcast, and I ended up deciding to steal an idea from the supremely excellent History of Rome podcast,

which I highly recommend you take a look at, by the way.

It's very, very good.

One of the things that the author of that podcast, a guy named Michael Duncan, did that I

really liked, was an episode on A Day in the Life of Your Average Roman during the height

of the Roman Empire. I thought it was a really good way to sort of introduce the social

structure of the period to people, and I figured, you know,

imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, so why not just borrow the idea? So, with thanks to him,

let's get started. First and foremost, before we get into anything else, it's important to

note that everything in this episode applies to maybe 20% of the population.

There are remaining 80% of Edo Japan's population, peasants and Barakumin both, lived in the outskirts of the big cities or in the countryside, and their day-to-day lives consisted of, well, work.

Peasants farmed, Barakamun performed menial labor, and that was really the sum total of most

of their days.

Wealthier peasants might spend some time on a side occupation to get some tax-free income,

and their children might go to what's called a Tarakoya, a private academy run by a Buddhist

temple, to give a sort of basic

education to a non-samurai.

...