research annoyances
8 May 2012 05:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
Currently reading Trade And Travel In The Far East, the Cambridge History of China (vols 6-8), The Early Age of Commerce, parts of Cultural Exchanges Between The East Asian Seas Ming And Qing Dynasties, and various articles like High Corruption Income in Ming and Qing China, Networks of Malay Merchants and the Rise of Penang as a Regional Trading Centre, Ryukyu in the Ming Reign Annals, and Sino-Japanese Interaction via Chinese Junks in the Edo Period.
Yes. I'm sure it's a hardly-startling reminder that I really am a total geek.
But anyway, the frustrating thing is I have no baseline for any of these articles. So-and-so was corrupt, making X amount of taels from bribery. Is that a high number? I have no idea. How much was so-and-so supposed to be making as a bureaucrat? No baseline. Or, these four junks did the Siam-Fujian run twice each in a year, carrying Y pikuls of rice. Does that mean all four junks were stuffed to the brim? Or is that just the rice-part of their shipments? Is that an overachiever's number of shipping runs, or was that fleet really lazy? This other shipment made so many catties of silver as profit on silk. Is that before or after paying the broker, the shipping magistrate, the dock fees, and how much of that went to sailors? In other words, is that a reasonable profit, or not much one of all once you count out the rest of the costs (and not just taxes)?
So, like I said: no baseline. I could probably deduce the rest, if I could just figure out how much the average sailor would expect to be paid. Or some sense of the cost of things. What was a reasonable market cost for rice, or silk, or fans, or umbrellas, anyway? No one ever lists these things...
Sheesh, I miss being in DC, where if I got really desperate I could haul myself to the Library of Congress.
Yes. I'm sure it's a hardly-startling reminder that I really am a total geek.
But anyway, the frustrating thing is I have no baseline for any of these articles. So-and-so was corrupt, making X amount of taels from bribery. Is that a high number? I have no idea. How much was so-and-so supposed to be making as a bureaucrat? No baseline. Or, these four junks did the Siam-Fujian run twice each in a year, carrying Y pikuls of rice. Does that mean all four junks were stuffed to the brim? Or is that just the rice-part of their shipments? Is that an overachiever's number of shipping runs, or was that fleet really lazy? This other shipment made so many catties of silver as profit on silk. Is that before or after paying the broker, the shipping magistrate, the dock fees, and how much of that went to sailors? In other words, is that a reasonable profit, or not much one of all once you count out the rest of the costs (and not just taxes)?
So, like I said: no baseline. I could probably deduce the rest, if I could just figure out how much the average sailor would expect to be paid. Or some sense of the cost of things. What was a reasonable market cost for rice, or silk, or fans, or umbrellas, anyway? No one ever lists these things...
Sheesh, I miss being in DC, where if I got really desperate I could haul myself to the Library of Congress.
no subject
Date: 8 May 2012 11:14 pm (UTC)My partner once bought us a September 1945 issue of The American, a monthly general interest magazine, and we read some of it with Wikipedia or Wolfram Alpha at the ready, to help with baselines -- example.
no subject
Date: 9 May 2012 09:47 pm (UTC)Still can't figure out what the trip duration would've been for a fair-sized Chinese junk to travel from, oh, the big port in Siam to Fujian, though. Or to Taichung, or the Ryukus. But I'm sure the info's got to be out there, somewhere. A hundred thousand history dissertations out there, someone must've studied this!
no subject
Date: 8 May 2012 11:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 9 May 2012 09:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 10 May 2012 02:24 am (UTC)But we're not experts over there; you'd be taking pot luck whether anyone else happened to have your same interest. It just seemed like if a long shot is all you have, why not take it?
no subject
Date: 10 May 2012 04:29 am (UTC)But yeah, it's a long shot, but then... this isn't exactly a topic that's way up there in the google rankings, or will ever be!