The rickshaw

In grade school, we learned that the Chinese have the rickshaw which is a carriage pulled by a person. Most riders of the rickshaw, according to our teacher, are the rich Chinese for they can afford the costly fare. I didn’t know that there are also rickshaws in other countries like Japan and Korea.

In this modern time, the rickshaw is just for the tourists. The rickshaw pullers are trained to be capable of doing the job. In part, they are not just a laborer who pulls the rickshaw but also a sort of tourist guide. In one park, I heard the rickshaw attendant say that in Japan, the difference between a temple and a shrine is that a temple is for Buddhists and a shrine is for the Shinto.