https://malaghan.wordpress.com/2015/01/24/amakusa-the-island-of-the-karayuki-by-mike-malaghan/>Karayuki originally meant going to China. When by the mid-nineteenth century, the Tokugawa Bakafu eased travel restrictions, Amakusans traveled to China to work as laborers or maids. For the women, servant work often evolved into mistresses or prostitution. When the Meiji restoration removed all travel restrictions, the karayuki became prized additions to Asia’s ports. Soon, the Japanese government noticed the hard currency the girls sent back to their parents. The parents converted the remittances to yen bequeathing Japan with the foreign exchange to build their military.https://spikejapan.wordpress.com/2010/11/28/amakusa-islands-of-dread/>The karayuki-san prostitutes derive their name from the girls and women of the Amakusa islands and the Shimabara Peninsula, who, once the travel restrictions of the Edo era were lifted in the 1870s, poured first into Nagasaki as the maids and mistresses of wealthy Chinese merchants, on occasion travelling to China with them as concubines. From these origins, the karayuki-san trade came to encompass much of East and Southeast Asia, extending as far as Siberia and North America.
>>18248265https://bobcouttie.wordpress.com/2019/04/15/the-naughty-story-of-halo-halo-and-the-karayuke-san/>Uneducated girls in poor areas of Japan were promised nonexistent jobs abroad and smuggled overseas. They would be charged extortionate amounts of money for travel, accomodation and fictional taxes which they could only repay by becoming prostitutes.>It did however enable them to send money to their families in Japan, who were often aware of what was going on and turned a blind eye to it.https://opinionatedasia.wordpress.com/2023/04/20/women-of-imperial-japan-2-imagining-and-identifying-the-karayuki-san/>Once their worth was determined in this way, women who would become karayuki-san were bought and sold in one of the three major hubs in Shanghai, Hong Kong, or Singapore and were shipped to brothels across a vast geographical region. This was the real aspect of their identities and experiences.https://localguyjin.wordpress.com/2012/08/20/the-other-prostitutes/>Because of trade occurring with Singapore and Hong Kong at the time, ships would often dock in Nagasaki, and before they returned would knowingly or unwittingly pick up soon-to-be Karayuki-san, and ferry them to China. A slightly more indirect factor relating to the emigration of Karayuki-san from Western Kyushu is coal. During this period, Japan had very few desirable exports: one was women, the other: coal. The export of coal from Nagasaki was basically a route that was shared and used by Japanese emigrants going abroad.
>>18248270>One of the most interesting reasons that many of the Karayuki-san came from Amakusa was actually a cultural reason: it was usually expected that a woman would out and work outside the region prior to marriage. Partially, this was probably a way of bringing money into the region, but it also probably had something to do with the fact that a woman was expected to pay half of her own dowry. Filial piety, social standing (which was largely based on wealth), and marriage eligibility were all major reasons for women to leave the village and come back with money. There was also a prevailing belief that prostitution would not harm a person’s soul and any spiritual tarnish could be removed simply through prayer to Buddha, thus it was perfectly acceptable to become a prostitute for a few years then come back and get married. It is kind of interesting to think that women, who had gone out, slept with hundreds of men, but then came back home much richer than when they had left, were regarded much hither in their society than a woman who had stayed home and worked on the farm. I do not really think that would fly in today’s society. As I mentioned before, most of the girls going abroad to become Karayuki-san knew what they were getting into. A slightly different image from how people tend to imagine girls getting into this line of work. If you do not know what I mean, I recommend you go out and watch the 2008 movie Taken, starring Liam Neeson. While they may have not had much freedom of choice in regards to working abroad as a prostitute, both due to pressure from their families and society, many of the girls had heard tales of living and working overseas and making much more money than they ever could while living in their villages. Probably due to the lack of social taboo regarding prostitution, the scouts, often former Karayuki-san, would tell the girls, and even their parents, exactly what they were in for.
>>18248273>The parents would make money by selling their daughters, then the girls would return with even more money. All in all, it was boosting the local economy, though in a slightly unconventional manner. The scouts would make commission, the parents would get a cut, the local tailors would make money from selling new yukatas to the girls, and even the boat captains would make some money for transporting the girls. For those of you that don’t know what Yukatas are. Japanese girls were typically purchased for around 300 yen at the time, but there were cases of girls being purchased for close to double this. Now, by today’s standards, 300 yen will not even get you a Big Mac or a pack of cigarettes. However, if you convert the value of 300 yen in 1878 into current yen, it is about one million yen (about $13,000) in 2011. Here is where we start getting into the economics and legislation regarding the Karayuki-san. The main reason for the market demand for Japanese prostitutes in Hong Kong and Singapore during this time is closely related to the division of China by the European powers in the 19th century. Hong Kong and Singapore were both major commercial centers and areas with a strong British military presence and a developing industry, which was mostly accomplished through the use of massive numbers of migrant workers from other parts of China. And with the influx of displaced single men, the sex industry grew and thus emerged the Karayuki-san. An interesting thing about prostitution in Hong Kong and Singapore was the fact that, under British control, it was highly regulated and much more tightly controlled than it was in Japan or, really, any other place in the world at the time. The three major rules enforced by the British were as follows: -Prostitutes would undergo bi-weekly medical inspections. -Brothels could only be owned by women. -Brothels could not be huge, and were located in specific, segregated locations.
>>18248275>A largely unknown fact was that, apparently, women were legally free to quit working for their brothels whenever they wanted and would not be bound by any contract, and any outstanding debt they maintained with their brothels would be immediately nullified upon their resignation, a fact that many brothel owners probably neglected to tell their employees, for obvious reasons. This was probably one of the major reasons why many Karayuki-san were actually treated very well, despite their profession. Unlike in Japan where brothels were largely social location
>>18248279https://transparentfilms.wordpress.com/2013/06/25/karayuki-san-the-making-of-a-prostitute-by-shohei-imamura-1975/>It is only by letting her do so that Shôhei is able to access and talk to those elderly women, some of whom live in care homes in Malaysia or can now only speak a very rough Japanese. Like those other kariuki-san who left their country as young women or girls to become part of the sex trade and who married Indians or Chinese,https://thriftytraveller.wordpress.com/tag/karayuki-san/>Osaki moved to Brothel No. 8 because it was, unusually, run by a woman and she treated her girls well. This elderly owner was called Kinoshita Okuni and known as “Okuni of Sandakan,” a famous and well respected personality of the town. Okuni had been the live-in-mistress of an Englishman in Yokohama but when he left Japan forever she moved to Sandakan and opened a general store and brothel.https://uspprism.files.wordpress.com/2015/06/brokenbirds1.pdf
Su Manshu had a Japanese maid mother and Chinese sex tourist father.Japan was litetally a sex tourist destination for Chinese exiles and students during the "Century of humiliation" Meiji era.Chinese merchants in Yokohama regularly bought and rented Japanese girls.Chinese merchants in Meiji Japan used Japanese teenage girls as concubines and maids and pumped and dumped them.Me ruv u rong time!https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karayuki-san,_the_Making_of_a_Prostitutehttps://napost.com/2018/karayuki-san-in-the-west/https://meijiat150.arts.ubc.ca/episode-61-dr-kazuhiro-oharazeki-setsunan/Kazuhiro Oharazeki: Thank you for having me.TG: You’ve published this book Japanese Prostitutes in the North American West: 1887-1920. And so, I’ve talked with other people about Japanese migration to North America, but I was hoping that you and I could talk more about what are the migrants (who come from Japan to North America) doing when they come over here? And what is the life like for the Japanese immigrants? So, could you talk about who are these people who are coming over from Japan? Where do they come from in Japan, and how many people are we talking about?And at some point, they met procurers, who talked about nice things of America: job opportunities or a chance to have an American education or marry rich landowners in California, who turned out to be peasants or hired hands who forced them into prostitution. I also found that not all women were unaware of what kinds of work they would do in their destinations. Some women had already sold sexual services to local foreigners in Yokohama working as servants in the houses of Chinese merchants. Others worked in brothels and dance halls, catering to foreign sailors and merchants. And in that process, they became familiarized with foreigners and Western cultures, which influenced their decision to follow masters or procurers to the American West.
>>18248289https://x.com/cl_phipps/status/1329828949644505089Japanese Prostitutes in the North American West, 1887-1920 https://uwapress.uw.edu/book/9780295743639/japanese-prostitutes-in-the-north-american-west-1887-1920#.X7fzTDaPIfU.twitterhttps://x.com/TristanGrunow/status/1329897456163717120This is an important work indeed! It was my privilege to interview Dr. Oharazeki for the #Meijiat150 Podcast. You can find the episode (and full transcript) here: https://meijiat150.arts.ubc.ca/episode-61-dr-kazuhiro-oharazeki-setsunan/Quotehttps://x.com/Khazarjude/status/1310322994296713218From the correspondence between the Portuguese King João III and the Vatican Pope, it is apparent that the Christian daimyo sold women into slavery in exchange for the Jesuits' gun powder, at a rate of 50 baptized Japanese girls for a barrel of saltpeter. http://katanacenter.com/Christianity%20in%20Japan%20-%20The%20Japanese%20Christian%20Samurais%20history.htmlhttps://x.com/sanitos/status/1467297973692518401Japanese women karayuki-san prostitutes in British Singapore, 1904. Meiji & Taishō era Japan exported hundreds of thousands of Japanese girls as karayukisan prostitutes to China, Australia, US, Canada & western colonies in Asia & Kenya to provide sex to male Chinese coolieshttps://x.com/MarieYasunaga/status/134556385432403148912hrs recording of an interview with a karayuki-san, Japanese women sold and transported to South Asia to work as prostitute.Rare interview tapes with Japanese 'karayuki-san' prostitute in Singapore surface - The Mainichihttps://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20201230/p2a/00m/0na/016000chttps://x.com/mellyindria/status/8385794494439424Karayuki-san, first japanese wmn went overseas to singapore, she was a prostitutes (13 yo) http://plixi.com/p/59436241
