ferries in Hong Kong

Add a Special Ambiance to Your Japan Experience!

by Boye De Mente on Sep 16, 2009

In earlier times, visitors to Japan, Hong Kong and China invariably came across the famous rickshaws that served as taxis. Rickshaw is “short” for jinriksha (jin-rick-shaw), which itself is a shortened form of the original Japanese phrase jinrikisha (jin-ree-kee-shah), which translates as “human-powered-vehicle.” Oddly enough, it seems that the first rickshaw-type human-powered vehicles appeared in Paris in the 1600s—not in Asia—and were adaptations of wheel barrows used to transport vinegar around the city—thus the French name vinaigrettes for these early “taxis.” As far as Asia is concerned, Japanese sources say that the jinrikisha was invented by three Japanese men, Yosuke Izumi, Tokujiro Suzuki and Kosuke Takayama in 1868 as an adaptation of the horse-drawn carriages that had been introduced from the U.S. a few years earlier. In 1870 Japan’s newly installed Meiji government issued an exclusive permit to these three men to build and sell...Read More >>