Kamakura

Kamakura Period:

I am thinking......There must be a sword now, there must be some cool warriors knowing the skill of how to defeat the enemies and this period must be a period of cool fights and battles that creates all the warrior romances.

I was wrong....well, half wrong....

This era is more about the height between the Bushi and the Imperial family, (Ten-nou). After the Genpei war, the Fujiwara family side of the allies have won the battle. However the Fujiwara family didn't authorize the ruling power. Surprisingly the Minamoto family (the warrior class family) came to power as if there was a revelation/rebellion....

This is why the Bakufu (government) moved to Kamakura. Bushi class have increased their power and promoted themselves to have authority over the imperial family.

After the death of Minamoto Yoritomo, his wife's family, Hojo came to power. She promoted her brother into a position called "Shikken" and he didn't really fight or act like the Samurai I know.
The Hojo family basically re-constructed the laws and rights of temples and countries.

But what I was most surprised is the Mongols invasion incident. The place I time travelled to was 1274 Japan, when the Mongols sent 900 ships and 40,000 soldiers from Korea to the Hakata Bay.

I saw the Japanese warriors and Bushi having difficulty defending themselves and the country and so some of them abandoned the defence. When the Mongols were about to win, they ran away! Luckily Japan was a country that a Typhoon passed through, and the Mongols were defeated by the Typhoon that came to the Bay. The Japanese warriors and people were in awe! Can you believe that they have trusted nature to help to protect the country? And not only once but twice did the Mongols get defeated by the Typhoon. This is why Japanese people believe in Kamikaze, the god of winds.

But Samurai did not protect them! They were just lucky with the weather! Wow I can't believe that they still didn't improve themselves to defeat the enemies. Where would the Samurai I know appear....?

Heian

Kyoto 1000CE

Time travel. That’s the most weird and exciting experiences I had in my life. It feels like all your cells have separated and your body and soul are together but not completely composed. Then a wind blows into your mind and here you are in the era of the unexpected.

Here I am Year 1000 in the capital of Japan, Kyoto. I was told that it is called the “Heian Period” or “Heian Jidai” in Japanese. When I researched, it literally means the period of harmony and peace. My mission is to find a Samurai and interact with them.  But...in the period of peacefulness, can I find a Samurai?

Perhaps they are training and meditating with in the quietness and getting ready for the battle. But what battle? Is there any conflict in this era? This is going to be an interesting visit.

As I was walking down the street, I see people here and there wearing Japanese traditional close “Kimono” but less expensive one I suppose. I find them dirty and not as appearing compare to the people I saw from Manga or Anime. You can really tell that they are surviving everyday life. But really distinctly, I see armored people who have bows and arrows mounting on the horses. Who are they?

I asked one of the local and they said that they are the warriors who have the skills to use arrows and knows how to mount the horses. “What about their swords? Are they Samurai?” I asked. But they are confused with the term Samurai, and laughed at me when I mentioned swords. Apparently bows and arrows are the most preferred weapon for the these warriors and there is no such term as Samurai.

Then my body start to do the weird thing again and here I am year 1100CE (said FBS2100) and seeing the completely different sight of Kyoto. Apparently now I am in the palace or castle called "Heian Kyo". People here are different, they dress much nicer, cleaner, and seems to be more educated...Some are writing poems, others are drinking tea. I must entered the area of riches and there are such a differences between the city and palace. 

It seems like there is a family called Fujiwara family is currently ruling the country. He used his daughters and married them to the imperial family in order to make him royal and gain power and authority. That would make him the aristocrat and the warrior of Mimamoto family. Interesting. I thought Samurai are their own masters. 

The aristocracies were looking down on the warrior classes regardless of how much fortune they had. This Minamoto family seems to be also quite fortunate since their masters are the aristocrats, however they were never seen as equal status.

The Minamoto family had a rival family, Taira family: They are the one who served for the Imperial family. How ironic that even though the Imperial family are related to Fujiwara family, they are the enemies of each other….

But the main point is that the Samurai did not existed in this period just yet. No Katana (Sword) or fighting all the time….. Heian period is the time that people still struggle with life unless you are in the higher status of aristocrats or imperial family who lived in the Palace.

Then I went back to where I am year of 2012...as if it was all a dream. Dream of enlightenment and illusion. 

Meiji Restoration

Tokyo, 1885

So, after watching The Last Samurai I thought that it would be super neat to like, go and see actual samurai! I mean, how cool is that?? It would be like, the ultimate dream trip since I would get to meet dreamy samurai!

But, it’s totally not like that.

Like I was hoping I was going to see the swords and the honor and the military might of the samurai, but that’s all gone.

Japan is going through a restoration. Like, they just restored their Emperor to power and took it away from the samurai. I was speaking to a guy and he said that they were focusing on becoming modern and sort of modeling themselves after the west!

He went on to talk about something called Bunmei Kaika or Civilization and Enlightenment. This was so they would look to the west and sort of like, emulate them in an effort to not appear like they were weak and could be taken over easily. The people of Japan didn’t want to become a colony, they wanted to be an imperial power. That’s kind of neat, huh?

Anyways.

Right now the Emperor is in the capital of Tokyo, which used to be called Edo. The government is shifting and is changing. It’s totally not what I expected.

I wanted to see the samurai and their topknots and their swords, but all I’ve bumped into is guys with relatively normal hair styles and military garb! I don’t get it.

I started talking with this one guy who looked awkward and was standing off to the side what was the deal, where did the cool samurai uniforms go, and he just stared. He told me that he wasn’t even part of a samurai family, that he was a farmer! I mean, what gives?

He’s part of the new army. It’s formed mostly from peasant families, with former samurai men in higher positions.

He continued to rattle on about how they were going back to the old traditions of their ancestors in religion and culture. How through their new focus on modernization, they wanted to embrace and support these old traditions so they wouldn’t get lost in the shuffle and forgotten. He said that they were going back many centuries, back to when the purest form of samurai existed, and using their old values and traditions, such as the way of meditation and tea ceremonies and so on. How they were going to follow the ways of bushido as the ancient warriors did so long ago.

But I was like, so confused. I mean, that existed a long time ago, but those guys totally weren’t samurai! They were warriors for sure, but like, that’s a very idealized and invented traditional view of the warriors!

Then he went on to talk about the long history of Shinto, but that’s when I walked away. It was a bit too much to hear him prattle on about how the Emperor was a descendent of Amaterasu.

Wow. This trip was nothing like I expect. I like, totally did not see ANY samurai. No cool battles or swords fights, no duels to the death over their lady loves.

Just saw a ton of people dressed up in military garb. BOR-ING.

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The Meiji Restoration changed Japan in many ways, including the government, economy, and army. The samurai were no longer the head of the government as the bakufu dissolved, and the emperor was ‘restored’ to power. However, in truth, the samurai were not gone. The powerful families still remained in power, as government officials. It was, in fact, the samurais’ idea to dissolve their power base, and they convinced their own daimyo’s to disband.

It was at this time that Japan wanted to be viewed as powerful and not weak, so they made modernization their top priority. When they thought they had become too much like the west, they started to go back and stress old traditions and values, such as the samurai spirit which, now, at this point, all Japanese were said to hold which is in stark contrast to the Tokugawa period and before wherein it was an elite class and that only a few could hold the samurai spirit. They wanted to have a culture that was completely unique and Japanese, thus creating and inventing the traditions of the warrior and bushido, and ignoring all other cultural ties that these concepts had. Instead of ‘restoring’ what was old, they instead ‘created’ what was old.

Tokugawa

Tokugawa Period, Edo Japan, 1802

Oh man, so. A few days ago I won a trip to a randomly chosen country in a randomly chosen time by this space and travel company and I got sent to the year 1802 in Tokugawa period Japan. Man is it cool! Like. The other day this dude comes up to me and was like, talking and wow. I’ll try and calm down and actually write what happened.

So, I arrived in the capital, Edo, and wow is it huge. It’s got some pretty lavishly decorated places! I bumped into a dude just outside one of them and he gave me the deal, like what was up with them and why it seemed like everyone was running in and out.

It seems like the lord of this place, the daimyo, just arrived from his other house in his province. I was shocked, I mean, two places! That must be crazy expensive. He continued to talk about how they just went through this process called Sankin Kōtai, where they travel from the province the daimyo rules over to Edo. They do this in a large and flashy manner, bringing hundreds of people with them. It tiresome and expensive work he says, but their daimyo has to keep up his reputation and the like.

He excused himself after that, saying that he had to pick up a book and a few new calligraphy brushes. Weird. It’s like. He’s a warrior, but it doing art things rather than war things.

Downtown Edo is brilliant and busy and the smells of all the various food is overwhelming. There is this place though, that I’ve seen several nervous looking guys slip into. I wonder why.

Upon further investigation I have discovered the Red Light District of Edo. Where all the hanky panky teahouses and so on. Plays, music, entertainment! Pleasure in its finest! A dude, there are some fine looking ladies.

It’s so funny. There are all these guys in large brim hats, covering their faces, but it’s totally obvious that they are part of the samurai class because they haven’t taken off their swords. I asked a guy why, considering it was so obvious, and he looked sort of scandalized but replied that the sword is the soul of the samurai and to be caught without the sword would be worse to be caught in the pleasure quarters. Deep, man. He went on about how important it is to the samurai and their training. How the sword embodied them, how it was a representation of them. He kept prattling on and a silently slipped away.

I went to one of the government buildings in Edo, just to see what it was like, and all these samurai were running back and forth, delivering messages from higher ups to other higher ups. It was all very bureaucratic. One guy was talking to another, saying how he was lucky to have this job, meager as it may be, considering his master had just died and his holdings passed to someone else because he died in an illegal act of violence. I thought these guys were apparently all about violence! Apparently not. Guess he wanted to follow his master into death, but that isn’t permitted, so here he is. Nothing exciting seemed to be happening, so I continued to walk on.

It’s really strange, you know. Like, all those tv shows and cartoons showed the samurai to be vicious warriors, bent on war and violence… but here it’s different. They’re more focused on government running, and the arts, and pleasure and improving themselves through writing and literature. In fact, man, there are laws against violence!

I can’t wait to shove this in my friend’s face. He’s sooo into the rough and tumble image of the samurai. Their nobility and such.

But they are totally bullies! I mean, I was passing by this one shop and this samurai guy nearly drew his sword when it seemed a merchant wasn’t going to loan him the money he wanted. They are so indulgent with pleasure that most of the samurai I’ve bumped into are completely broke! Even though they’re at the top of the social hierarchy! Weird huh? The merchants, the lowest of low on the social ladder, are usually richer than the samurai. Hah. There was this other samurai guy who totally just beat the heck out of another guy too. Man. I mean, personal vendettas might be outlawed but that dude is totally getting away with it cause it’s just a merchant.

Anyways, this is basically what happened during my trip. Man, it was AWESOME.

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The Tokugawa period in Japan was a time of peace, but also the time period where the samurai truly became the undisputed top dogs of the social hierarchy. After the wars of the Sengoku period, the Tokugawa shogunate focused on controlling warfare and promoting peace. They obtained this through various law codes such as the buke shohatto code of 1615, where the daimyo’s were heavily restricted to what they could do (repairs on castles, ship building was not allowed, and marriages were monitored closely).

Religion was also heavily controlled, as Christianity was banned, Buddhism had lost its power and its temples were regulated to conform to bakufu standards, and Shinto slowly crept back into the playing field more as a more prominent religion.

As seen above in this entry, the traveler talks about how the samurai were broke, but continued to take out loans and do things that were pleasurable to them – for example teahouses and bathhouses (brothels), and entertainment (such as kabuki, noh, and bunraku plays) were common things for samurai to spend their money on, money which they didn’t have. Samurai were paid in stipends of rice, and as agriculture boomed, rice became less valuable. It is here that the merchant class, the lowest class, came in. They provided loans to the samurai, allowing them to continue this decadent lifestyle. This frozen social order caused many more problems for both samurai and commoners alike.