Editing Pulled rickshaw (section)

====Japan====
There are several theories about the [[rickshaw|invention of the rickshaw]]. Japan historian Seidensticker wrote of the theories:
<blockquote>Though the origins of the rickshaw are not entirely clear, they seem to be Japanese, and of Tokyo specifically. The most widely accepted theory offers the name of three inventors, and gives 1869 as the date of invention.<ref name="Lu p. 348">{{cite book | title=Beyond the Neon Lights: Everyday Shanghai in the Early Twentieth Century | url=https://archive.org/details/beyondneonlights0000luha | url-access=registration | publisher=University of California Press | author=Hanchao Lu | year=1999 | pages=[https://archive.org/details/beyondneonlights0000luha/page/348 348] | isbn=0520215648}}</ref></blockquote>

Starting in 1870, the Tokyo government issued a permission for Izumi Yosuke, Takayama Kosuke, and Suzuki Tokujiro to build and sell rickshaws.<ref name="De Mente p. 94">{{cite book | title=The Bizarre and the Wondrous from the Land of the Rising Sun! | publisher=Cultural-Insight Books | author=Boye De Mente | year=2010 | isbn=978-1456424756 | editor=Demetra De Ment | pages=94 }}</ref> By 1872, they became the main mode of transportation in Japan, with about 40,000 rickshaws in service.<ref name=Powerhouse>{{cite web | url=http://www.powerhousemuseum.com/insidethecollection/tag/jinrikisha/ | publisher=Powerhouse Museum | title=Japanese rickshaw | access-date=11 April 2013 }}</ref>

The rickshaw's popularity in Japan declined by the 1930s with the advent of automated forms of transportation, like automobiles and trains. After World War II, when gasoline and automobiles were scarce, they made a temporary come-back. The rickshaw tradition has stayed alive in [[Kyoto]] and Tokyo's [[geisha]] districts<ref name="De Mente p. 95">{{cite book | title=The Bizarre and the Wondrous from the Land of the Rising Sun! | publisher=Cultural-Insight Books | author=Boye De Mente | year=2010 | isbn=978-1456424756 | editor=Demetra De Ment | pages=95 }}</ref><ref name=Powerhouse /> only for tourists as well as in other tourist places. The tradition completely disappeared once, but a few people revived jinrikisha (human-powered rickshaws) for tourists in the 1970s-1980s<ref>[http://yuufuutei.main.jp/kamakura/?page_id=2128 Jinrikisha in Kamakura] Youfuu-tei</ref><ref>[http://39hida.com/jinriki/ Jinrikisha in Hidatakayama] Gokurak-sha</ref> and the rickshaws became popular as a tourism resource in the 2000s.<ref>[http://www.jnto.go.jp/eng/location/routes/rtp/northern_tohoku/day1.html 3-Day Model Trip Day1 / Kakunodate - Lake Tazawa-ko - Morioka] Japan National Tourism Organization, 31 January 2002</ref><ref>[http://www.isfj.net/ronbun_backup/2009/k05.pdf 京都観光] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150616073707/http://www.isfj.net/ronbun_backup/2009/k05.pdf |date=16 June 2015 }} ISFJ政策フォーラム2009発表論文 12 – 13 December 2009</ref><ref>[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_9E9tHpDts Rickshaw] TV Show "Sekai Tsukai Densetsu" 2002-2003</ref> The modern rickshaw men are a kind of tourist guide, who take their clients to some tourist spots and explain about them.<ref>[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvX48c9TKK8 Hataraku Ikemen] JoshiFuji Channel 2013/04/29</ref> Many of them are part-time working students and athletes who like running or exchanging cultures.