Shinbo Jowa
- Author: Imamura Yodoshichi
- Japanese: 新浦情話 (shinbo jouwa)
Shinbo jôwa, or "Frank Conversations from the Port of Niigata," is a work written by Imamura Yodoshichi, town magistrate of Niigata from 1791 to 1801, discussing a variety of issues of moral government facing the city.
In a section entitled kugai no hôkô ("service in the world of suffering"), he discussed the pressing issue of Niigata, and Nagaoka han & Echigo province more broadly, being one of the chief regions from which families sold their daughters to work as prostitutes elsewhere throughout the realm. Many families engaged in such actions out of desperation for financial survival; this resulted in Echigo developing simultaneously fame & positive reputation for its women, but also negative reputation for its (failings of) moral governance. Imamura's work sought to address the latter issue. Taking the form of an imagined conversation between scholars of different perspectives - a common conceit used by intellectual treatises of the time - kugai no hôkô presents the selling of daughters as either a stupid and immoral act, or as a greedy and selfish one, placing the blame for it on the villagers themselves, and thus absolving the authorities of any fault in their efforts at benevolent & moral governance.
In another section written in a similar fashion, Imamura has a young man suggest that perhaps prostitution is tolerated or encouraged by officials in Niigata to provide a healthy diversion for hard-working townsmen. An older man corrects him, saying that officials do not wish for locals of Niigata to be distracted by the allures of the pleasure districts, and that officials recognize prostitution as a societal evil; however, it is a necessary evil, as it caters to merchant sailors, making Niigata an attractive port in which to do their business. Without prostitution, the older man asserts, fewer merchant sailors would come to Niigata, and the economy of the city, and of the domain, would suffer.
References
- Amy Stanley, Selling Women: Prostitution, Markets, and the Household in Early Modern Japan, UC Press (2012), 118-119, 121.
