Rickshaws were originally popular in Japan, completely relying on manpower two-wheeled vehicles, so also known as rickshaws, and the beginning of the rickshaw can sit 2 to 3 people, the pressure of rickshaw drivers can be imagined, but forced by life, doing rickshaw drivers is indeed a choice, after all, at that time to do porters are much harder than today, especially some poor people, or specially for people to do coolies.
In 1873, the Frenchman Mira saw the convenience of rickshaws, so she submitted a plan to the French Concession Public Administration Bureau to introduce rickshaws, which were approved, also because it was imported from Japan, the Shanghainese at that time called it the Oriental car, at that time the car had not yet appeared, and there could not be a horse-drawn carriage on the road, and the rickshaw naturally had a large market.
After all, the vast majority of rich families, travel usually do not take the car, and since the emergence of rickshaws, they prefer rickshaws, overnight, the streets and alleys of Shanghai Beach have appeared rickshaws, by the early years of the Republic of China, rickshaws have swept Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, Han and other metropolises.
According to statistics, in Beijing alone, there are 54,393 rickshaws, and rickshaw drivers have reached 110,000 people.
At that time, there were many poor people living in their homes, otherwise there would be no foreigners entering, and the people would still show the invading foreigners the way, and now looking at what they have done, they undoubtedly feel ignorant and ignorant, and there is no concept of home and country, but at the end of the Qing Dynasty and the beginning of the people, most of the low-level people are working hard to survive.
And most of the wages earned by the rickshaw driver in a day are to be handed over to the company that provides rickshaws, there is no way, even if the rickshaw company makes a lot of money, and you work like a livestock rain or shine, you can only barely make ends meet, but you fall off the burden and do not do it, and you are quickly replaced by another person, and you who have lost a job do not know when the next full meal will be.
But rickshaw drivers not only have to face the problem of meager income, but also often suffer from extortion and extortion by hooligans and Japanese gangsters. Mr. Lao She talked in detail about the tragic fate of the rickshaw puller in "Camel Xiangzi".
Even if you work hard to save money and own your own rickshaw, you may be abducted, blackmailed, etc., so the rickshaw driver will hardly live to be 40 years old, but there are still many people who rush to do it, but the oppression has reached a certain point, and people will eventually know how to resist.
Because if you don't resist anymore, there will be no hope for life, and when you are poor, there will always be people who will care about the lives of ordinary people, just like Lu Xunzhi is awakening the minds of the people. So the Shanghai public concession took the lead in setting up the rickshaw drivers' mutual aid association, and the life of the rickshaw drivers was slightly changed.
Other cities and regions have also followed Shanghai's example and organized various trade unions.
However, from the body of the rickshaw driver, we can also see the character of our people "hard-working and hard-working", in fact, rickshaws have a history of decades in our country, even after the end of the war, people's lives gradually improved, to the eighties and nineties, rickshaws still exist in China's big cities, but from foot walking to foot pedals, and then electric.
Nowadays, in some scenic spots, there are also rickshaws, but the price is much higher than before, and the rickshaw drivers must know the history of the city where they are located, and during the solicitation period, they will tell customers about the history of the city and this street, and they may know a lot more than the tour guide.