Honour above all

Today's issue: samurai, ronin and why those Japanese warriors are one of my biggest weaknesses.

At the beginning I want to present you the most basic and important information about their role in the society of premodern Japan, appearance, duties and personal life. As one of the smallest group (less than 10% of the Japan population in that time period) samurai were high-ranking military class that was set up to serve the japanese dignitaries or even the emperor. I guess those incredible warriors can be easily recognize by their very characteristic look. The symbol of their position in the society in that time were a samurai sabre called katana and a short sword named by japanese people wakizashi. Wearing them was a privilage and an obligation of those unmatched warriors. What is interesting is that those two objects were not only weapon, but (according to Japanese legends) above all they constituted the soul of a samurai. This is the reason why those men were so strongly attached to them. Some of the samurai also used traditional Japanese asymmetrical bows called yumi. The long hair of those warriors was usually pinned up with the aid of ribbons.

In my opinion there is no warriors in the history who valued honor just like samurai did. What is astonishing is that most of them were boundlessly loyal to their master and they were ready to sacrifice themselves without a single thought (it is really hard to judge whether it was a positive or negative thing). Samurai who lost their master or broke the rules becames a ronin. Being a ronin was considered as dishonour and a man who becomes a ronin was usually humiliated by samurai. There is a lot of stories which praise the courage of ronin or stress their laziness.

I must admit that I love stories were ronin are true heros taking care of other people protecting them from injustice. One of my closest friends always jokes that if a movie has samurai I will definitely be into it:)) Oh! At the end I would love to recommend you a movie called 47 Ronin, it's amazing!!! See ya in the next post! Bye!:)