{"id":18,"date":"2008-12-13T22:06:56","date_gmt":"2008-12-14T02:06:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/japanese\/?p=18"},"modified":"2018-07-27T18:12:03","modified_gmt":"2018-07-27T18:12:03","slug":"samurai-%e3%81%95%e3%82%80%e3%82%89%e3%81%84","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/japanese\/samurai-%e3%81%95%e3%82%80%e3%82%89%e3%81%84\/","title":{"rendered":"Japanese History: Samurai (\u3055\u3080\u3089\u3044)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I recently watched a movie on dvd called <em>The Last Samurai <\/em>with Tom Cruise and Watanabe Ken.\u00a0 It wasn&#8217;t too bad, and it rekindled my admiration for the samurai (<strong>\u3055\u3080\u3089\u3044<\/strong>) code.\u00a0 First off, what is a samurai (<strong>\u3055\u3080\u3089\u3044<\/strong>)?\u00a0 A samurai (<strong>\u3055\u3080\u3089\u3044<\/strong>) is a swordsman\u00a0of noble rank.\u00a0 The samurai (<strong>\u3055\u3080\u3089\u3044<\/strong>) class was actually created to serve and protect the lords.\u00a0 If the lord was pleased with the samurai&#8217;s (<strong>\u3055\u3080\u3089\u3044<\/strong>) loyalty, the samurai (<strong>\u3055\u3080\u3089\u3044<\/strong>) could receive his own castle!<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft\" style=\"float: left\" src=\"http:\/\/www.dpmhi.com\/elements\/stored\/product_group_imgs\/2502.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"100\" height=\"100\" \/>In many old lores, samurais (<strong>\u3055\u3080\u3089\u3044<\/strong>) are heroes who fight to protect the weak.\u00a0 The idea of an honor code in which a samurai (<strong>\u3055\u3080\u3089\u3044<\/strong>) must abide by is Bushido (<strong>\u3076\u3057\u3069\u3046<\/strong>).\u00a0 The honor code is what makes up a great part of the lore around samurai (<strong>\u3055\u3080\u3089\u3044<\/strong>) tales.\u00a0 The general rules of Bushido (<strong>\u3076\u3057\u3069\u3046<\/strong>) stress loyalty to one&#8217;s lord, dedication to swordsmanship, and maintaining one&#8217;s honor until death.<\/p>\n<p>The samurai (<strong>\u3055\u3080\u3089\u3044<\/strong>) class were really big on swords. (Sorry for stating the obvious!).\u00a0 Many of the samurais (<strong>\u3055\u3080\u3089\u3044<\/strong>) had two swords.\u00a0 The bigger sword was called the katana (<strong>\u304b\u305f\u306a<\/strong>) and used to slaughter other people.\u00a0 The smaller sword is the wakizashi (<strong>\u308f\u304d\u3056\u3057<\/strong>) and used upon oneself to commit seppuku (<strong>\u305b\u3064\u3077\u304f<\/strong>).\u00a0 (What an organized way of killing!)\u00a0 Seppuku (<strong>\u305b\u3064\u3077\u304f<\/strong>) is a form of ritual suicide where the samurai plunges a wakizashi (<strong>\u308f\u304d\u3056\u3057<\/strong>) into his stomach.\u00a0 Sometimes after a defeat in battle, a samurai (<strong>\u3055\u3080\u3089\u3044<\/strong>) would be able to keep his\u00a0dignity by committing seppuku (<strong>\u305b\u3064\u3077\u304f<\/strong>).\u00a0 You might ask, why not take some poison and die that way?\u00a0 Well back in those days dying a tortuous death was considered brave and honorable of a samurai (<strong>\u3055\u3080\u3089\u3044<\/strong>).<\/p>\n<p>Not all samurais (<strong>\u3055\u3080\u3089\u3044<\/strong>) were men of honor.\u00a0 Some had violent tempers and were feared for their use of the sword as a means to solve problems.\u00a0 Sure, we all have someone we dislike at work, but most people wouldn&#8217;t go and lop their co-worker&#8217;s head off for an off-hand remark.\u00a0 The unpredictability of a samurai (<strong>\u3055\u3080\u3089\u3044<\/strong>) wielding a sword and the desire for peace led to the downfall of the samurai (<strong>\u3055\u3080\u3089\u3044<\/strong>).\u00a0 In the Meji (<strong>\u3081\u3058<\/strong>)\u00a0era, carrying a sword was forbidden and the class of samurai (<strong>\u3055\u3080\u3089\u3044<\/strong>) slowly died out.<\/p>\n<p>Whatever you think of the samurai (<strong>\u3055\u3080\u3089\u3044<\/strong>) past, the samurai (<strong>\u3055\u3080\u3089\u3044<\/strong>) are here to stay.\u00a0 There are more movies, books, anime (<strong>\u30a2\u30cb\u30e1<\/strong>) on samurai (<strong>\u3055\u3080\u3089\u3044<\/strong>) now than there ever have been, and it will probably continue to be so forever.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I recently watched a movie on dvd called The Last Samurai with Tom Cruise and Watanabe Ken.\u00a0 It wasn&#8217;t too bad, and it rekindled my admiration for the samurai (\u3055\u3080\u3089\u3044) code.\u00a0 First off, what is a samurai (\u3055\u3080\u3089\u3044)?\u00a0 A samurai (\u3055\u3080\u3089\u3044) is a swordsman\u00a0of noble rank.\u00a0 The samurai (\u3055\u3080\u3089\u3044) class was actually created to serve&hellip;<\/p>\n<p class=\"post-item__readmore\"><a class=\"btn btn--md\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/japanese\/samurai-%e3%81%95%e3%82%80%e3%82%89%e3%81%84\/\">Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[2825],"class_list":["post-18","post","type-post","status-publish","hentry","category-culture","tag-samurai"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/japanese\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/japanese\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/japanese\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/japanese\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/japanese\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/japanese\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6284,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/japanese\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18\/revisions\/6284"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/japanese\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/japanese\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/japanese\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}