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Why I Live In The Shonai Region of Yamagata

Why do I live in Yamagata? Why don’t I live in Tokyo or Osaka with the rest of them?

Well, my answer to that question is, why do all the rest of them live in Tokyo or Osaka? Japan is covered in interesting places!

I like to boast that there aren’t many places in Japan, besides here in the Shonai region, with three Japan Heritage sites.

In fact, there are none.

Granted, places like Kyoto skipped the Japan part and went straight to world heritage.

However, this doesn’t take away from the fact the lowly Shonai region, a small region on Yamagata Prefecture’s Sea of Japan coast the size of Tokyo’s 23 Wards, has three Japan Heritage sites. For a place that wasn’t an imperial capital for over 1100 years, this is simply unheard of.

But honestly, who besides UNESCO really cares?

Ok, maybe those people whose idea of travel is to ride busses, get off only to take token photos, perhaps peruse the souvenir section, maybe buy a canned coffee, then get back on the bus again only to rinse and repeat.

You know, the kind of people who think it’s a good idea to record fireworks festivals (seriously, when are you ever going to watch that?).

Those people. They might care.

But they’re weird.

They’re just there for the street cred. The street cred that oddly only exists amongst themselves.

Don’t worry about those people.

Worry about what this means for you.

For me, three Japan heritage sites is extra validation I live in one of the most awesomest places in Japan.

A place where if you uncover one fact, it only leaves you disappointed (read: excited) with how much else there is to learn.

A place full of stories with huge implications not only on the history of Japan, but also the world.

Like Japan’s Rothschilds.

Let me explain.

Have you heard of The Honma Family?

The Honm- who?

Not far from where I live is an old house with tall black wood and white plaster walls, and a grand gate that even has its own tiled roof.

Well, this house, or more specifically The Honma Family that lived in it, are kind of a big deal. The Honma Family are basically Japan’s Rothschilds.

Before the Second World War, not only were the Honma Family the richest family in Japan, they were its largest landowners too.

The only thing that got in their way was the Americans (rightfully) disbanding the Zaibatsu, the massive financial conglomerates that helped Japan’s war effort during the Second World War. The Honma Family had a lot of their wealth in easily distributable land, which meant they couldn’t hide it easily like other Zaibatsu…

But anyway,

How did The Honma Family get so rich in the first place?

Sakata and The Honma Family had a direct influence on Edo becoming the sprawling metropolis we know it as today, Tokyo (and making Tokyo Banana, I guess).

You see, during the Edo and Meiji Periods, The Honma Family made millions upon millions through trade on the Kitamaebune North Sea Route with trade ships called Sengoku-bune.

In short, these ships carried all-important rice and safflower (a flower worth more than gold used for dying, where the colour red in silk etc. comes from), to a flourishing Edo, right when it was suffering from growing pains as the world’s biggest city.

Not only that…

They took buy low, sell high, to the extreme.

One fellow named Kawamura Zuiken devised a scheme to send these ships from Sakata to Edo in about three months. More importantly though, he got permission from the Shogun to buy and sell things along the way.

In those days, inter-regional travel was limited to the upper classes. Since these ships were able to travel throughout Japan, the people on these ships were the only ones who knew the prices of different commodities in different areas.

Sengoku-bune literally translates to ‘1,000 Koku ships’. Koku was the denomination used to describe the size of an army, and is equal to the amount of rice a grown man eats in a year, about 140kg (309 lbs.).

Needless to say, these ships could carry a lot.

The more they could carry, the more they could sell,

and the more money they could make.

In fact, it was said you could make enough money from a single journey to pay for a whole boat.

And then some.

In today’s currency, it would be about half a million.

On one journey.

Where do I sign up?

It was an actual real true Get Rich Scheme

And the Honma family was at the centre of it.

At their peak there were hundreds of these ships, and many of their owners lived in Sakata.

Sakata too really really flourished, but the trade wasn’t just one-way. On the return leg, many cultures from throughout Japan, including Geisha from Kyoto, made their way back to Sakata (and one of them is my friend, see the video above!).

The God of Markets: Modern Market Psychology Started in Sakata?

But that’s not all.

One particularly famous person from the Honma family is Munehisa Honma, sometimes known as The God of Markets.

Long story short, Munehisa made a whole lot of money through a secondary market of coupons on a futures market for rice. Also, he wrote about it in 三猿金泉秘録, San-en Kinsen Hiroku, the first book in the world on market psychology.

Also also, he’s the (purported) inventor of candlestick charts that show price movements of securities, derivatives, or currency.

Needless to say, the family was extremely wealthy, and this wealth was a huge catalyst for another story about Japan you might have heard of.

A story involving Tom Cruise and Ken Watanabe.

You know the one:

The Last Samurai

But that’s a story for next time.

Now where’s my canned coffee?

I have a fireworks festival to film.

This article from the Kiwi Yamabushi newsletter got more than 1,000 reads, so I decided to put it here for everyone. Get articles just like this in your inbox by signing up here. Paid subscribers get priority access and access to the full archive of over 100 articles.