Due to the BBC news article "Get lost in Japan's ancient samurai town" (2015) which present the Higashi Chaya district in Kanazawa, the town that still remain almost the same as before the World War 2 so we can find the old atmosphere like it used to be in 16th century, and we can learn many things about samurai since it is the most flourishing place for samurai in Japan. This town was designed in a labyrinth form in order to distract the outsiders and the invaders, besides the effectively amazing structure of the town, it also has the old beautiful white castle called Kanazawa castle which was built by the Maeda family, the rulers of Kanazawa.
For me, if I was about what come first in my mind when talk about Japan, it isn't samurai either. I think of food like Takoyaki and Chocolate because they are my favorite. I love eating, obviously. And the other things that follow by is random such as Onzen, animations, theme parks, Sakura or fashion so I would rather say that samurai is not the representative of Japan. But what if we change the question into what come first in your thought when you hear the word "samurai", I'm pretty sure that 90% of people's answer will be "Japan".
Nowadays, we can only find samurai in movies and cartoon now that it was devastated since the late 19th century. The first samurai I know came from the cartoon Ikkyu-san. The story is about a clever Japanese novice named Ikkyu who have been challenged in many situations during his days in the temple and there is a samurai who I can't remember his name appear and help the novice in some scenes. It is a good cartoon that I think Japanese kids, or even Thai kids, know well because it is challenging and help you use your brain thinking in another point of view. I love watching it because I like to think about the problem and if I could answer correctly I would be proud of myself but I actually haven't got any right one, too bad.
Another famous movies about samurai is the sequel of "Samurai X". I know it from my younger brother who is into every kind of fighting (it's the guy things, I guess) and after I watched the first part I found it interesting. It is about the leaderless samurai, normally samurai must have his leader called Daimyo in Japanese, who has swore that he won't kill anybody again in hid life, but then he has to do something to protect Japan from the enemies and even though he tried his best not to break his own word, he must have killed some people anyway. Well, I didn't finish watching all of the sequel. Sincerely, this work reminded me of watching it as I have planned for so long.
If I have a chance to go to Japan, I will definitely go to Higashi Chaya district to see how things are. Will it be as beautiful and interesting as I expect?, I hope it is better.
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If you are wondering about how many people will come up with an idea about "Samurai" when we talk about japan, then I would say at least you got one right here me, I am really interested in Japanese history in the Sengoku period, especially the amour and weapon of samurai, because I can use it a lot in props&characters concept designing.
ReplyDeleteoh i see. at first i think that there must be very few people think about it cause people around me always think of Sakura, snow and Royce chocolate(like me, chocolate lover)
DeleteJapan is not the country that comes to my mind when I think of chocolate: that would be Switzerland, followed by Belgium, but definitely not Japan.
ReplyDeleteBut perhaps I need to update my national stereotypes.
I was surprised recently to read that a Japanese whisky is now judged the best in the world, beating out Scotland. Perhaps in some areas, Japan is are now more Western than the West.
I have watch one jp movies about the mathematician who can create the formula for making wine. he added many factors into his equation like the temperature in each season, the longitude, latitude of the place where the grapes grow and so on. And i thought that it's impossible! But when you said japanese whisky is the best one, i have to think about it again.
DeleteI do agree with you, Samurai is not what the first come to my mind either when i think about Japan. From my point of view, when someone talk about Japan, it might be Japanese animations, games , food, camera and also new technology.
ReplyDeleteBecause when i was a child, I grew up with Japanese animations such as Dragon Ball-Z, Sailor moon, Doraemon, Hello Kitty, Ikkyu San, Conan the detective and so on. Nowadays, I still watch a lot of Japanese animations when I have a spare time. Well, I think watching animations can give me motivation and cheer me up when I face the tough time. I need to do something to make me relax and burst out laughing.
For me, the best Japanese animation is Doraemon. Because when Nobita is facing a trouble , Doraemon will do his best to support him, cheer him up, fight for him, try to help Nobita as much as he can and also Doraemon never ever leave Nobita alone. I can see their strong friendship and see how the true friend is from this Japanese animation. This is what I think about Japan.
I do agree with you that Doraemon and Nobita has a strong bond between them, and i dont want it to reach the end.
Deletei watch Conan too. when i was young i really like it but now i'm a bit annoyed. i want to know the end already. i dont care which girl conan/shinichi will choose, ran or hibara. i just want to know how conan become shinichi and how those black men will be.
Nice post! Because I feel love the country when I visited there. I always think of it and if I have a chance to go there, I will absolutely go there again. However, at the first time when I think about the Japan, I don't think about samurai, I think about nice scenery like Mt.Fuji, nice people, modern technology. I just heard the word "samurai" that it means japanese people surely.
ReplyDeleteAs for me, I know more information about samurai from Ikkyusak like you. When I was young, I liked to watch the cartoon in every evening after finishing school. The samurai is clever and brave to fight the enemy. Besides, most samurai lived in the Japan palace like this article and other palaces around Japan.
When I visited Japan, I had an opportunity to go to the imperial palace. I think the imperial palace, including other Japan palaces was constructed similar structure like the picture above. In history, some samurai might used to live at the imperial palace.
Samurai is like a bodyguard of Shougun or Daimyo who is in the high position of government so they lived in a big place like palace. i think samurai is actually all over the country but this town is the only one that preserved almost of things.
ReplyDelete