See this people here? They're known as the burakumin, the "hamlet people", in Japan. They are (still) considered impure workers because their work consisted of butchers, undertakers, tanners, executioners - basically stuff that has to do with death and they were outcast groups.
But the question is; why? Isn't it a contradiciton? What would japane do without burakumin? There'd be no undertakers if people died? No source for meat? No executioneers? No leather? I really don't get it.
Apparently japan had/has a very pescatarian-friendly diet, and somehow they consider killing animals wrong because some buddhist belief or something, I'm not really sure, while still being okay with killing fish because they're coldblooded. Please correct me here.
What a weird country. And to this day, butchers/workers in slaughterhouses are reluctant to tell people what their profession is because they don't want to be mistaken as burakumin because they still face a lot of discrimination by employers and people randomly sending hate-letters.
>>1378089
People who do tasks as "base" as that are often looked down upon, although it's funny because without these people society would probably crumble.
Japs are just dicks, like everyone else.
>>1378092
True, but these people are considered lower than the peasant and fisherman. That's what's so weird about it. It's like, you have the lower classes under the samurai, nobility and emperor and stuff, but then you have the burakumin even under the peasantry
>>1378094
Though they don't make up the majority by any means, like a pyramid structure
>>1378089
Look up the Cagots in France. Shit's fucked.
>>1378089
basically burakumin + zainichi koreans = netouyos
>>1378097
you mean Argentinians?
>>1378097
well that's fucked up, I didn't know about that. It's even weirder, because they don't seem to have any profession or any real reason to be hated other than people just shunning them because they're descendants of cagots
>>1378097
what the hell?
what did they do to be hated like that?
>>1378111
Moorish rapebabies
>>1378089
Tabooed people and jobs have been pretty common.
>The story starts with the main character (an old executioner in Spain in the early 60's) approaching retirement age. As his profession is quite rare, he (a very gentle and nice man, caring, and proud of traditions) begins to worry about who might take his place when he retires. He has a daughter, but, unfortunately, she seems doomed to perpetual "spinsterhood"; as soon as any prospective groom learns about her dad and her dad's "trade", he runs away from her, scared. However, a new character enters: the local undertaker, a young handsome man who has exactly the same problem... No girl wants him given his profession. So, you have the woman whom almost nobody would marry and the man whom almost nobody would marry. Obviously, they are meant for each other and soon get married.
>>1378089
Tanners were generally despised because their workshops literally smelled with piss and shit. This was also a thing in Europe.
>>1378116
Yeah and at a macro-level it just keeps growing until they're a separate caste of people people shun
>>1378094
The existence of such a class is not unusual by any means.
Welcome to the real world, jackass
t. Untouchable
I currently live in Japan and there is a small Buraku area which I would call a ghetto near where I live, and you cannot enter that "ghetto" unless you are driving a car because all the walkways are blocked. An acquaintance of mine married to a Burakumin and her parents removed her from their legal family register because she's got married to a Burakumin man.
>>1378138
What happens if you touch the untouchable?
>>1378094
See leper colonies and untouchables etc.
>>1378151
Decent movie
>>1378143
ROW ROW FIGHT THE POWAH
We wuz arbitrary caste system n shieeet
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osu_caste_system
>>1378143
break the unbreakable
ROW ROW FIGHT THE POWAH
>>1378142
Wut. Where do you live in Japan?
>>1378142
White piggu go home
>>1378089
>Burakumin
>Buraku min
>Braku min
>Brak man
>Black man
Disturbing.
>>1378089
Much like india or da joos, it's a religious stigma dealing with not so arbitrary cleanliness. Not only do they do unclean work, they also spread miasma because of it.
What you have to understand about the japs is that they have constitutions so fragile that they can die from superstition. A headcold is a life or death affair. Memes have actually destroyed their little immune systems.
>>1378177
I wonder when we will move on from making memes the reason for everything.
>>1378174
The fuck, Anon.
>>1378116
Great /his/ related classic too.
>>1378179
Historically it was sensible, but you would be very wrong if you don't think that culture plays a massive role in health. Besides for literal meme disorders like hwabeong, you also have the statistically significant effects of positive outlook on immune response and recovery.
If I can get someone to lose weight by changing their self image from that of the inevitability of being a fatass like their parents, make labor painless by telling them it will be painless, and cure allergies and asthma through addressing a shitty childhood experience, then maybe health is cultural in some way. Memes move everything around me, desu desu JUST y'all.
>>1378117
>because their workshops literally smelled with piss
Well that's because they actually used piss to do their job.
>>1378092
Not everyone else considers butchers like Japanese do.
>>1378092
Except Japan (and India) Create a special caste for this people that will taint them forever.
Unlike anywhere else in the world where these were lumped into the general lower classes.
Also the stigma on executioners is fucking weird though. Only Korea and Japan has that. In China, its an honorable job.
>>1378089
Were the butchers rich though?
In Europe butchers seemed to have earned quite a bit.
>>1378283
no, they lived a very base life like peasants, and treated worse. Samurai could kill them with impunity if they were suspected of a crime
>>1378092
>People who do tasks as "base" as that are often looked down upon, although it's funny because without these people society would probably crumble.
Yes, yes.
t. Marx
>>1378362
This must be some advanced form of shitposting.
>>1378097
WTF why was carpeting or rope-making bad?
>During the Revolution, Cagots had stormed record offices and burned birth certificates in an attempt to conceal their heritage. These measures did not prove effective, as the local populace still remembered. Rhyming songs kept the names of Cagot families known.
Jesus fucking Christ, why is humanity so cruel?
>>1378094
So? Nips considered merchants to be below peasants in Edo period.
>>1378381
The Cagot touch in other kind of stuff, such as food may have corrupted them. So they were reduced to that kind of jobs.
This does bring thoughts to how gypsies are being treated even in modern Europe still though, let's be honest.
Such stigmatization and hatred hasn't left the human soul.
>>1378385
Probably not. They hated money and considered themselves above it, but merchants and artisans were a crucial symbiotic relationship
>>1378396
The warrior class that is
In Ethiopia, groups like metalworkers, potters and other artisans were seen as outcasts and feared for possessing the evil eye and the power to change into a were-hyena. I think this disdain for manufacturing and non-agricultural labour in general contributed to the country's failure to modernise. There was even a 17th century Ethiopian treatise complaining about their treatment, because society couldn't function without those artisans, but it doesn't seem to have made any impact.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buda_(folklore)
Is there a name for these kinds of groups? They seem to exist everywhere. You could argue that Jewish moneylenders in Europe were another example, as well as Irish Travelers (traditionally metalworkers).
>>1378273
>Also the stigma on executioners is fucking weird though. Only Korea and Japan has that. In China, its an honorable job.
Yeah and Europe..
Retarded, hypocrit question again, we still look down on people with dirty jobs that are essential to society. The only difference being that we don't despise them so fiercely. Good luck finding a plumber who married a starlet though.
>>1378392
Gypsies in my area are assholes, though. Although they don't blow shit up, I guess.
>>1378385
Merchants were below peasants, but they weren't ostracized the way burakumin were. They might have been disliked by the samurai and Confucian scholars, but they still had their place in society in which they could and did thrive.
Burakumin weren't 'below' peasants or merchants; rather they just didn't fit into the social hierarchy at all. They had no place in society.
>>1378406
>>1378406
You really don't see the bigger problem at hand here, the complexity of the issue? How you're just another one biting into it?
"Oh I've heard they're assholes, let's hate them". Even if they ARE assholes, do you not see the complexity? They are being stigmatized from birth, what chance in life did they have? And you culture of hatred is the one feeding the issue.
>>1378404
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles-Henri_Sanson
>>1378418
I do understand it's more complex than that, but they're still dicks. Not gonna hate all of them for it, but I certainly don't like the guys in my area.
>>1378420
>b-but they're still dicks
>b-but I certainly don't like the guys in my area
You're a fucking moron.
>>1378404
>honourable in China
Can I get a source please? Sounds interesting
>>1378419
The same for Germany where executioners were obliged to train their sons for the job as future executioners. Descendants of executioners would anyway not be entitled to choose any other profession than that of an executioner, and the rare exceptions to exist would only happen after long and complicated lawsuits. Executioners could only marry women from executioner families. Due to the German culture conception that executioners and their family members were unclean, their homes had to be located outside of town and be painted in a distinctive yellow color in order to avoid the possibility that someone might accidentally knock on the door. To touch an executioner or anything he had ever touched transmitted the executioner's uncleanness onto the person who did so, and a pastor would have to perform a purification ritual to turn that person clean again. Therefore, most churches and pubs would not let an executioner in, unless they'd have a special seat apart from the others, and pubs with a seat for the executioner would have a special glass chained to the separate table. So when gallows needed repairs, all respective specialized workers had to join the works so none of them could have a colleague as unclean, and after repairing works were finished the workers had to undergo the pastor's ritual to become sociable again.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executioner
>>1378426
It's not a culture of hatred, you retarded SJW. They behave like dicks. I don't hate them because they were born gypsies. Even if they behave that way as a reaction to whatever perceived hatred they get here, someone has to take a step forward and stop. If I do it, so must they. It's insulting to suggest that I'm the only one who has to do it.
>>1378401
>Is there a name for these kinds of groups?
"Untouchables"
>>1378430
Trusting Germans not to be a xenophobic shitheads..
>>1378436
It was the same in France.
But they are very progressive now, you should be happy and accept their refugee quotas.
>>1378180
These things are never heard of in Japanese eastern area. It's not until I started working that I learned discrimination against Buraku people are still real. マジ、社会人になるまで知らなかったぜ…
>>1378097
The maltreatment they received is just a meme
One theory I've heard, and I'm by no means an expert, is that the discrimination has its origins in shintoism. Traditional Shinto belief has a large emphasis on cleanliness and purity. The salt at sumo matches for instance is a way of cleaning the environment for a match. This is more of a spiritual cleanliness than a real health based one of course.
Anything that had to do with death was necessarily unclean and so the people that were relegated to these professions would be basically avatars of filth and corruption. Unless you wanted the taint of death and the bad juju that came with that you'd leave well enough alone.
And from there I imagine it snowballed as we all enjoy feeling better than an imagined group of inferiors in our bizarre and cruel ape brains.
>>1378089
>>1378089
>But the question is; why? Isn't it a contradiciton? What would japane do without burakumin? There'd be no undertakers if people died? No source for meat? No executioneers? No leather? I really don't get it.
>What a weird country
It's truely astonishing how little /his/ actually knows about history. Like seriously, it is always about some smug normative question which shows serious gaps in knowledge and is more about judging a country, or a people than about theorizing about a particular issue.
Tanners are shunned because they came into contact with germs (speak diseases), smelled bad and were dirty. They smelled literally like rotten meat and were just as despised in medieval Europe than in Japan. Assessing that this is some pure Japanese peculiarity is just ignorant.
>>1378491
Wikipedia in response to a wikipedia response. But don't worry, I have actually seen historical executioner houses and the lecturer (a history major) and the position and shape of the house confirmed everything which is said in that article.
>>1378251
exactly
>>1378396
merchants were weird. According to feudal law they had lower status than peasants, but they also had alot of money, which forced the aristocracy to deal with them
>>1378436
Oh that one started as a riot for more citizen rights and greater say for the guilds/jobmakers as the city was governed by a council of 24 nobles.
Jews were tagged because they were suspected to had risen interest rates on corn to 16% which is probably a rumour spread by people who wanted to get rid of their debt holders.
The exevutioner thing is not really an example for xenophobia tho, as they executioner was well known in the town after all and not much of a xenos concerning his beliefs and ethnicity if it werent for his grisly profession.
>>1378426
Eat a dick faggot redditor
People should be judged by their character on an individudal basis, and when most of these individuals are cunts there's no reason to not disdain them
>>1378089
Every culture has this burakumin caste. In Japan it's just more institutionalized and more visible. Do you think that even today Western people just fucking LOVE people who, I don't know, slit a hundred chickens' throats per day for KFC? Hell no.
>Apparently japan had/has a very pescatarian-friendly diet, and somehow they consider killing animals wrong because some buddhist belief or something, I'm not really sure, while still being okay with killing fish because they're coldblooded. Please correct me here.
It's a Shinto-Buddhist issue. Shinto has huge taboos about cleanliness (blood is the number one contaminant) while in Buddhism dealing in living beings is one of the wrong livelihoods and Mahayana heavily endorses vegetarianism (but it's important to note that there is no eternal damnation or anything associated with meat, and the tradition has a lot of tension about it overall, it's a complex issue). Associating these elements from both traditions with the natural human tendency to shun such jobs, the burakumin were born. Some bullshit that doesn't actually fit with Buddhist teachings about how this is totally ok because of those people's past karma followed.
As for fish, Buddhism considers all killing as pretty damn bad, but in the case of animals the negative karma created isn't the same for every animal, it generally varies with size and number, and there's the cold-blooded and non-cold blooded distinction. It seems however that at one point a vegetarian-like diet was prevalent.
>>1379079
Interesting
