February 25, 2021 • 26 mins
Kyota Ko, mastermind behind the website Metro Classic Japanese, Joins Helen and Matt to discuss the long and fascinating history behind Samurai.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
I'm Matt beat and I'm Helen Hong, and today we
are taking a stab at samurai. We are cutting into samurai.
The mean take always of confusionism is be nice to
(00:21):
your your superio, be nice to your family, be nice
to your friends, and be nice to me. Don't try
to kill them. If someone were to raid your house
and try to kick you out. Today we have the
police we can call to help us. However, throughout much
of history, ways to protect our property we're much more informal.
Take medieval Japan, where a decentralized state and collapse of
(00:47):
armies made it so that invaders could easily pillage Peasants
became vulnerable and decided they needed to protect themselves. Many
would begin carrying weapons and undergoing strict, intense training, and
over time developed a reputation as brave warriors, to a
(01:08):
point where nobles began hiring them to protect their property.
And this episode we are learning about a job of
high prestige, a job that even today remains one of
the most famous and romanticized jobs and history. Let's learn
about the samurai. I'm excited to talk about samurai because,
(01:32):
like you were saying, it is romanticized, and you see
movies and Tom Cruise played one, like, yeah, let's get
into it. I had a feeling he might come up.
That movie is based off of a French guy who
was I don't know if he officially ever was one,
but yeah, like he loved the culture so much that
(01:54):
he didn't want to leave. Tom Cruise, were you portraying
an Asian fetishist that that movie is so problematic from
an Asian perspective? In so many ways, Tom Cruise was
not the last Samurai. But anyway, let's let's not talk
about that horrible jump the gun. Let's not jump the gun.
We're talking about the real samurai here, also called bushy,
(02:17):
and they were the warriors of medieval and pre modern Japan.
I think a lot of our listeners already have this
vision of the samurai. But when you think of samurai,
what do you think of helen. They were that really
cool stylized Japanese armor with the with the helmet that's
sort of like has a little flip at the bottom,
(02:40):
and they were expert swordsmen. My impression is the sword
was the major weapon, or the maybe the only weapon
of a samurai. They were on horseback. You know what's sad,
Matt is. I really am thinking a lot about the
ton Cruise movie. I give keep imagining, like what envisioning
(03:02):
what I know about samurai, and I'm like, oh no,
Like take my Asian card, somebody. Everything I know about
the samurai comes from teenage mut Ninja Turtles three, So
that that is a good one. So real samurai were
neither tom Cruise nor Turtles, and they were not ninja's
I should say ninjas were considered beneath them, Like how
(03:24):
dare they? Like Samurai had a strict code you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah,
that that's my impression definitely is like very disciplined. They
would train for years before they were even allowed to
call themselves samurai. People looked up to them. That's kind
of my impression of a samurai. Yes, there's the ethic
(03:44):
code of Bushido, which translates to the way of the Warrior,
and it's heavily influenced by Confucianism. But essentially the biggest
stand out to me with our like just ethical behavior
in general, Like you're not gonna do alcohol, you're not
gonna go to the brothel, You're going to have the
(04:05):
highest standards of living possible, and it's kind of similar,
I guess, to two monks. And in that regard, I
was just thinking that as soon as you said don't
drink alcohol and don't go to the bravl, I'm like, oh,
they're like fighting monks. Like if you're not drinking and
boozing and hooking up, then you're kind of like a
religious man in a way. We're going to find out
(04:28):
here that a lot of Samurai were actually quite opposite
of what we just described. So no, we're going to
burst the samurai bubble. Yeah, yeah, Well, who do we
got that's gonna burst our bubble? Well, we talked to
Kyota co he's a podcaster, but we prefer to call
him a communicator of Japanese culture. He's gonna tell us
(04:51):
how the samurai began nine hundreds one thousand. Around that time,
the king of the Emperor, well, the ruling class of Japan,
and because they had ousted like an opposing rates out
of their territory, they felt that they didn't need the
army anymore. That was becoming costly, of course, and also
(05:12):
there was a belief called kolto Dama, which refers to
the belief that whatever you say becomes the truth. So
royalty thought, if we keep the army, and we have
to talk about the army. Army is associated with war,
so maybe China or Korea might invade us. That's part
of the reason they disbanded the whole army. And that
(05:34):
caused problems for peasants who live in the countryside. They
had no one to protect them from bandits who would
rob and destroy their farmlands that they worked hard for.
There were also corrupt governors sent from Kyoto, so there
were sandwich between corrupt rulers and dangerous mobs. So they
had to protect themselves and their farmland. And that's the
(05:55):
beginning of the Summurise. So Summurise were peasants who really
hold their combat skills in order to protect their filiw peasants.
What Yeah, I never knew it. That is so fascinating.
So it was like Joe Schmo farmer dude. It's like, well,
I'm not going to let anybody like imagine this in
(06:17):
a Japanese accent. Well, I'm not gonna let anybody come
in here and take my heart, air and farm stuff.
Eloquent Helen, You're just so ele, you know, I I'm
really good at words. Wait, so so because the army
had been disbanded and the farmers were like, oh, hell no,
(06:39):
I'm going to learn how to be a badass and
protect my farm. It's up to us. We're on our own.
The heck with it. We're gonna learn it ourselves. We're
going to be our own police, and I'm gonna learn
how to fight with the sword, and I'm going to
become a major badass. Come at me. When we think
of samurai, we're usually thinking of like I think later
(07:01):
period when there was more formal and part of the hierarchy,
whereas the earliest samurai were just your everyday folks. And
then it was of course passed down. It was hereditary,
so from father the son for generations. Now we're gonna
drop ahead a few hundred years, a kyota is going
to talk about a new era. Japan was like comparison
(07:24):
to the U S. It was like each state was
governed by a warlord, and each state was fighting against
each other. That was the state of Japan. And because
some of my lords were like local governors, but then
most states were like, our job is to protect our people.
We're not going to invade. We're trying to be nice
people to their neighbors. There were a few Summuri lords
(07:45):
who had a vision of uniting Japan. One was Tokugaha Yasu.
He made all other Summury lords throughout Japan's surrender under him,
peace was attained. There were no more like someone the
lord's fighting against other states anymore. And that's how Japan
became one. This was around the early Oh, that's so interesting.
(08:10):
So feudal Japan was similar to our history in the
United States, like before the Declaration of Independence, we had
separate states. Yeah, I think that's a that's a solid comparison.
I think it might be a little bit better to
compare it to a medieval Europe, like he's talking about
the fifteen hundreds and sixteen hundreds. By that time, there
(08:32):
was a very strong cast system in Japan. Do you
won't believe this, actually, but at the bottom you have
like the merchants, which were a little bit higher, i'd say,
in the the hierarchy over in Europe. But above the
merchants you had the artisans and peasants. But then above
them you had the samurai. They worked directly for the daimio.
(08:58):
The daimio were the lord who they owned all the land.
It's sort of similar to nights in Europe, right because
around the same time there were lords of the land
and peasants that worked the land for the lords, and
then knights would protect the lands. Right. Yeah, that's another
good comparison you with your comparisons called the comparison queen.
(09:22):
The most powerful daimio were the shoguns and they essentially
ran all of Japan collectively. There was the emperor, who
was supposed to be above everyone, but the emperor during
this time did not have very much power. The real
power was the shogun and the shogunate yea. So by
the end of the feudal era, I guess you can
(09:44):
call it, there were about two and sixty damo and
they controlled all of the land. And who was their
military force, essentially the samurai. How does the damio relate
(10:09):
to the showgun? Like, the showgun are the most powerful
daimio that actually, I see. So the daimio are the
people who own the land. They're like the feudal landowners,
and then the showgun are the most powerful damo. Yeah,
like the like the like. The pope is the most
(10:30):
powerful of all cardinals the way the showgun is the
most powerful of all. Damio, Yes, Chris still clear, Thank you,
Matt okay. So, after Tokugawa Iyasu, I'm really worried about
pronouncing his name, even though I said in one of
my videos several times, Nat, what are you saying? You
didn't take a Japanese pronunciation class before we started our
(10:50):
recording today? Oh my god, it was too busy in
my French pronunciation class. So after Tokugawa Iyasu took over,
there were a lot of changes. Towards the beginning of
Tokoyo rule, they did have to rely on power to
make sure that there were no revolts. They were very
(11:11):
harsh to sumurai lords who were not related to the
Tokya family, so whenever sumurai lord failed something in his job,
they would take that as an excuse to fire the
whole family off of the ruling class. But that also
meant that they were producing many unemployed Summarize and Summarize
are basically really good at killing people and nothing else,
(11:34):
So you know these kind of unemployed people roaming around Japan.
That's that's really dangerous. They switched their policy to attain
peace through education of the whole country. They brought in Confusianism.
The main takeaways of Confusianism is being nice to your
your superior, be nice to your family, being nice to
your friends, and be nice to me, don't try to
(11:55):
kill them. That was like the official um philosophy that
summarize I need to learn if they wanted to do
a good job. So everybody studied very hard. It worked.
It worked, people started to calm down. They didn't think
that killing was the goal to solution for anything. And
it's it still affects us this Japanese now we we
(12:15):
try to avoid confrontation and it's clearly an effect from
this education. The cool family set up like three years ago. Okay,
everything about that quote is hilarious. The fact that he's like, yeah,
you know, be nice, men, don't don't kill people. Yeah, yeah,
that and just the fact like I love the concept
(12:37):
of an unemployed samurai. Hey will murder for a sandwich? Anyone?
Anyone did that makes sense to you? Like how samurai
could lose their job? Yeah. As you know, Matt, I
always am keen to do a Game of Thrones reference,
which you never get because you've never seen Game of Thrones,
(12:59):
which really is it's a it's a character flaw on
your part. I'm not I'm not gonna lie. And you
know in Game of Thrones, the whole concept is there
were seven kingdoms and they were brought together. That's what
Tokugawa Iyeyasu was. He was like the first ruler of
the seven kingdoms of Japan. Basically the shogunate system was
(13:24):
definitely you had less opportunities for samurai because there was
more unity, essentially more stability. It's like, oh, we're getting along,
we'll shoot the Diamo is like, well, I guess we
don't need as many warriors anymore. So they begin to
lay off the Samurai's so funny. That's it's I mean,
(13:44):
it's it's not funny, but it's funny in that it's
like to think about, like, uh, sorry, samurai, you're laid off. Man,
what am I going to do now? Yeah? It's like,
I don't know, man, maybe you could take an I
T class or something. A lot of them that ended
up in the cities were actually notorious for, uh cause
(14:06):
in trouble, like similar to gang members today. I would
say this is fascinating because it really does point to
human nature and how you need an occupation. You need
to be busy, You need to have a purpose and
a job, otherwise you're causing trouble. And did I mentioned
they have a license to kill? What? Yeah? They could
(14:28):
essentially if somebody was rude to them. Now, as long
as they had a witness that could verify the rudeness
they have, they have the authority to kill on the
spot whoever was being rude to them. What so if
I so, if I'm a drunk peasant and then the
samuraised the straight and I'm like, hey, you look like
(14:49):
a dork in that helmet, the samurai had the right
to just kill me right then and there. Yeah, even
through the Tokugawa era, they had this authority to kill
on the spot. I love the idea that you needed
a witness to the rudeness. What did you just say? Hey,
(15:10):
what did he do? You heard that? Right? I can
kill him? Right? Yeah? Okay. So we see a transformation
during the Tokugawa period, approximately between sixteen o three all
the way up to eighteen sixty eight. You do see
a gradual change with the role of the samurai. Many
(15:30):
of them actually became bureaucrats, while some were successful with business,
others were not. And so you essentially had these proud
warriors that now had kind of menial jobs after peace
was attained, after their officers of municipalities. So what they
(15:52):
do is like office work basically, So they would carry
around swords for nothing to to sit down and do
office work. So like set taxes, print bonds. They were
organized firefighters and dog catching everything you know, the government
does for us. So you could kind of imagine how
Sumrise would feel that their ancestors would fight courageously in
(16:13):
battles and they become legends. Now they find themselves chasing dogs.
So peasants would kind of laugh behind their backs. They
were laugh and summarize, of course, they were not happy
about how they were treated as officers. So summarize, we're
questioning their identity a little bit, and peasants greatly questioned
(16:34):
their importance, and of course that that led to distrust
from people gradually through a course of two hundred years. Wow,
I mean, talk about a career crisis. You're like, man,
I got the sword and I'm here pushing papers, you know,
working at the DMV with your sword on your back.
(16:56):
That might start to make people still nervous. You know,
I just came here to register my vehicle. Why are
you swinging that giant sword? Joking aside, this actually reminds
me of what happens to a lot of veterans, like
army veterans who you know, in today's day and age,
they go to Afghanistan, they go to Iraq, and then
(17:17):
you come here and you're supposed to just like fit
right back into society and like work at Walmart or
you know, work in a retail job, and you're like,
I was literally dodging bullets like a year ago. Well,
I will say that it was more gradual though, like
we're talking over a couple hundred years. It's more comparable
to maybe a grandson thinking about his grandpa who fought
(17:38):
bravely in World War Two, and it's like, I want
to be like Grandpa and like the good old days
where I was could be out there and a war hero,
you know. So another thing about Japan during this time
was that it was very isolated, and so Kyota is
gonna explain why it was so isolated during this time
towards the Middle like any Western country was allowed to
(18:00):
send in missionaries in return for training with Japan, but
some local Christian groups started acting up. The Toka family
wanted to prevent any form of risk, so the Japanese
Christians were prosecuted and the Christian missionaries they were sent
back to their countries, and only the Dutch were were
(18:21):
able to trade with Japan because they came to Japan
solely for the purpose of trade, and that state of sakoku,
it's called takoku, that state of closing for trade continued
for like two twenty years. Because of Sakoku of Japan,
they were able to home their culture as a very
very unique one because they had really no influence from
(18:43):
other countries. But at the same time that caused like
blindness among the ruling class. They had no idea what
was going on outside Japan, and technological advances were were neglected.
(19:06):
I can't believe that the culture kind of stayed the
same for two hundred years. You know, the sixteen hundreds
Japan was kind of similar to eighteen hundreds Japan. That's
just mind boggling to me. Just to kind of back
up a little bit here, you have two hundred years
or so of isolation. You also have two hundred years
or so of peace and stability, and meanwhile, the Samurai
(19:28):
are still part of this culture, and so when things
change after those two hundred years, it was kind of
like a a huge wake up call when they had
to confront the rest of the world. In the eighteen hundreds,
a set of American chips came into Japan, which was
close to trade for a long time, and Japan got
a wake up call. The last time Japana checked with
(19:50):
Western countries, their technologies were not that different. But after
two hundred years, the industry revolution had occurred and steamboats
were made, the massive ships, and they were terrified. It's
like Earth becoming invaded by aliens. Shogun decided to surrender
to America, and then some Sumuri clans in western Japan
(20:11):
plot like Kudatas. The Shogun sent Sunrise to Kyoto to
protect the emperor, but they lost. So now everyone was thinking,
you can't protect us from other countries, and you can't
protect the emperor, what really can you do? So Shogun
was forced to forfeit his title as the ruler of
(20:32):
Japan and the Emperor will be the ruler of Japan
once again. Like knowing what I know about Korean history,
it's really resonates with me, like, you know, it's these
tiny little Asian countries and they've had the same way
of living for so long and close themselves to technology,
so they're still living the way they did in the
six hundreds, and then these American ships come and their
(20:55):
steamships they have cannons on them, they have gunpowder and guns,
and the Japanese are like, what the hell, Like they
just knew that they were no match. Actually, it was
quickly the beginning of the end for the samurai. After this,
their social status went way down. In the eighteen seventies,
the samurai makes up about five percent of the Japanese population,
(21:17):
so we're still talking about almost two million members here,
and they are under direct national jurisdiction. Before we even
get into that, just so I'm clear. The Americans arriving
in the eighteen hundreds, that was the catalyst for this
new government to come into power. Yeah, that was that
(21:37):
was definitely the catalyst. It was, you know, it was
a few years. There is a civil war between those
who want to westernize and bring the emperor back into
power and kind of the more traditional the shogunate. Yeah,
who are like, no, this is the way we've done it,
and and this is the way we should keep doing
(21:58):
it and be old school and have our samurai. Yeah,
samurai actually find themselves on both sides of the battle,
but ultimately those who favor westernizing when and so we
we call this the Meiji Restoration. So the return of
the Emperor Meiji, the show gonna is gone. And now
we have a period of rapid industrialization and westernization and
(22:24):
essentially embracing the rest of the world and quickly modernizing.
And meanwhile, what are we gonna do with these samurai.
The new government had a lot of knowledge of the
world outside Japan. They thought they had to modernize as
quickly as possible so that they will be treated as
an equal to the western superpowers. The job of the
(22:45):
samurai was obsolete, and the way of thinking of sumurizing
was obsolete. The new government told them give up your rule,
but in return, we'll we'll pay for your living costs.
So they were taking away their catana stors, they were
taken away their class, they were taking away their provinces.
A few years later, the government realized this is not sustainable,
so they said, um, sorry. In the second thought, we
(23:06):
can't afford to do it, so we'll give you like
a retirement pay this year, last you for like five years.
So good luck. And then so they went off somewhere successful.
But most words, they realized how hard peasant life was,
how hard craftsman life was. I love the idea of
a samurai be given severance pay. Here's your pink slip.
(23:31):
We won't be needing your murderous swordsmanship anymore. Good luck
in your new career. Don't call us because we don't
have a re education program. Goodbye. Yeah. So, things as
you can imagine, are not going well for these cameras.
So there is one final revolt, and essentially this is
(23:52):
the what we're gonna hear is the end of the samurai,
maying Summarize moved to the west where there was like
a safe house for Summarise who couldn't adapt to the
new age. For the lack of better analogy, it's like
they were forming a union, so the Sumurai union. They
were plotting Kudita, and one day these young Summarize revolt
(24:15):
against the central government. There was a lot of casualties
on both sides, but the new center of government bought
the latest firearms from the West. They invested a sick
amount of money, and they took this as an opportunity
to demolish the sumurise that were remained, and that was
the real end of the Sumurai class. Mm hmm. This
(24:40):
is so many implications in our current life about people
who can't adapt to a new world, right. Yeah, well,
not only that, but the samurai. For hundreds of years
they have this this individual authority that they had, the samurai,
(25:00):
and now they're like, what, we have to obey this
chain of command. They no longer rule their own destiny. Essentially,
we're just now cogs in the machine, like all of
us listening like Game of Thrones, which you would know
the reference if you had ever seen Game of Thrones, Matt,
which I am holding it against you from an outsider's
(25:22):
perspective and having this very romanticized image of samurai, it
is sad and that it's like the death of something
very traditional and something very unique to this culture. But
then knowing what we know now that samurai were kind
of jerks. They were allowed to just kill you on
(25:42):
the spot for rudeness. Maybe the murder and mayhem and lawlessness,
Yeah maybe maybe not, Maybe that's not so great. Thank
you so much to Kyotako for being our expert today.
You can find him and all things about Japanese culture
by googling Metro Classic Apaneese. And let's introduce Helen to
(26:04):
a different film about Samurai other than the Last Samurai.
So what are what are your favorite Samurai films other
than the Last Samurai? Let us know tweet us at
job Slete pod. That's at job s Elete Pod. Job
Slete is produced for I Heart Radio by Zealots manufacturing
(26:25):
hand Forge Podcast for You. It's hosted by us Helen
Hong That's Me and Matt That's Me. The show was
conceived and produced by Steve Zamarky, Anthony Savini, and Jason Elliott.
Our editor is Tommy Nicole, our researcher is Amelia Paulka,
our production coordinator is Angie Hymus, and theme music is
by the mysterious Breakmaster Cylinder. Special thanks to our I
(26:48):
Heart Radio team led by Nikki Etre, Katrina Norvell, Ali Cantor,
Mangesh Hotti, Kador, Will Pearson, conal Burne and Bob Pittman.
I'm Matt beat and I'm Helen Hong, and today we
are taking a stab at samurai. We are cutting into samurai.
The mean take always of confusionism is be nice to
(00:21):
your your superio, be nice to your family, be nice
to your friends, and be nice to me. Don't try
to kill them. If someone were to raid your house
and try to kick you out. Today we have the
police we can call to help us. However, throughout much
of history, ways to protect our property we're much more informal.
Take medieval Japan, where a decentralized state and collapse of
(00:47):
armies made it so that invaders could easily pillage Peasants
became vulnerable and decided they needed to protect themselves. Many
would begin carrying weapons and undergoing strict, intense training, and
over time developed a reputation as brave warriors, to a
(01:08):
point where nobles began hiring them to protect their property.
And this episode we are learning about a job of
high prestige, a job that even today remains one of
the most famous and romanticized jobs and history. Let's learn
about the samurai. I'm excited to talk about samurai because,
(01:32):
like you were saying, it is romanticized, and you see
movies and Tom Cruise played one, like, yeah, let's get
into it. I had a feeling he might come up.
That movie is based off of a French guy who
was I don't know if he officially ever was one,
but yeah, like he loved the culture so much that
(01:54):
he didn't want to leave. Tom Cruise, were you portraying
an Asian fetishist that that movie is so problematic from
an Asian perspective? In so many ways, Tom Cruise was
not the last Samurai. But anyway, let's let's not talk
about that horrible jump the gun. Let's not jump the gun.
We're talking about the real samurai here, also called bushy,
(02:17):
and they were the warriors of medieval and pre modern Japan.
I think a lot of our listeners already have this
vision of the samurai. But when you think of samurai,
what do you think of helen. They were that really
cool stylized Japanese armor with the with the helmet that's
sort of like has a little flip at the bottom,
(02:40):
and they were expert swordsmen. My impression is the sword
was the major weapon, or the maybe the only weapon
of a samurai. They were on horseback. You know what's sad,
Matt is. I really am thinking a lot about the
ton Cruise movie. I give keep imagining, like what envisioning
(03:02):
what I know about samurai, and I'm like, oh no,
Like take my Asian card, somebody. Everything I know about
the samurai comes from teenage mut Ninja Turtles three, So
that that is a good one. So real samurai were
neither tom Cruise nor Turtles, and they were not ninja's
I should say ninjas were considered beneath them, Like how
(03:24):
dare they? Like Samurai had a strict code you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah,
that that's my impression definitely is like very disciplined. They
would train for years before they were even allowed to
call themselves samurai. People looked up to them. That's kind
of my impression of a samurai. Yes, there's the ethic
(03:44):
code of Bushido, which translates to the way of the Warrior,
and it's heavily influenced by Confucianism. But essentially the biggest
stand out to me with our like just ethical behavior
in general, Like you're not gonna do alcohol, you're not
gonna go to the brothel, You're going to have the
(04:05):
highest standards of living possible, and it's kind of similar,
I guess, to two monks. And in that regard, I
was just thinking that as soon as you said don't
drink alcohol and don't go to the bravl, I'm like, oh,
they're like fighting monks. Like if you're not drinking and
boozing and hooking up, then you're kind of like a
religious man in a way. We're going to find out
(04:28):
here that a lot of Samurai were actually quite opposite
of what we just described. So no, we're going to
burst the samurai bubble. Yeah, yeah, Well, who do we
got that's gonna burst our bubble? Well, we talked to
Kyota co he's a podcaster, but we prefer to call
him a communicator of Japanese culture. He's gonna tell us
(04:51):
how the samurai began nine hundreds one thousand. Around that time,
the king of the Emperor, well, the ruling class of Japan,
and because they had ousted like an opposing rates out
of their territory, they felt that they didn't need the
army anymore. That was becoming costly, of course, and also
(05:12):
there was a belief called kolto Dama, which refers to
the belief that whatever you say becomes the truth. So
royalty thought, if we keep the army, and we have
to talk about the army. Army is associated with war,
so maybe China or Korea might invade us. That's part
of the reason they disbanded the whole army. And that
(05:34):
caused problems for peasants who live in the countryside. They
had no one to protect them from bandits who would
rob and destroy their farmlands that they worked hard for.
There were also corrupt governors sent from Kyoto, so there
were sandwich between corrupt rulers and dangerous mobs. So they
had to protect themselves and their farmland. And that's the
(05:55):
beginning of the Summurise. So Summurise were peasants who really
hold their combat skills in order to protect their filiw peasants.
What Yeah, I never knew it. That is so fascinating.
So it was like Joe Schmo farmer dude. It's like, well,
I'm not going to let anybody like imagine this in
(06:17):
a Japanese accent. Well, I'm not gonna let anybody come
in here and take my heart, air and farm stuff.
Eloquent Helen, You're just so ele, you know, I I'm
really good at words. Wait, so so because the army
had been disbanded and the farmers were like, oh, hell no,
(06:39):
I'm going to learn how to be a badass and
protect my farm. It's up to us. We're on our own.
The heck with it. We're gonna learn it ourselves. We're
going to be our own police, and I'm gonna learn
how to fight with the sword, and I'm going to
become a major badass. Come at me. When we think
of samurai, we're usually thinking of like I think later
(07:01):
period when there was more formal and part of the hierarchy,
whereas the earliest samurai were just your everyday folks. And
then it was of course passed down. It was hereditary,
so from father the son for generations. Now we're gonna
drop ahead a few hundred years, a kyota is going
to talk about a new era. Japan was like comparison
(07:24):
to the U S. It was like each state was
governed by a warlord, and each state was fighting against
each other. That was the state of Japan. And because
some of my lords were like local governors, but then
most states were like, our job is to protect our people.
We're not going to invade. We're trying to be nice
people to their neighbors. There were a few Summuri lords
(07:45):
who had a vision of uniting Japan. One was Tokugaha Yasu.
He made all other Summury lords throughout Japan's surrender under him,
peace was attained. There were no more like someone the
lord's fighting against other states anymore. And that's how Japan
became one. This was around the early Oh, that's so interesting.
(08:10):
So feudal Japan was similar to our history in the
United States, like before the Declaration of Independence, we had
separate states. Yeah, I think that's a that's a solid comparison.
I think it might be a little bit better to
compare it to a medieval Europe, like he's talking about
the fifteen hundreds and sixteen hundreds. By that time, there
(08:32):
was a very strong cast system in Japan. Do you
won't believe this, actually, but at the bottom you have
like the merchants, which were a little bit higher, i'd say,
in the the hierarchy over in Europe. But above the
merchants you had the artisans and peasants. But then above
them you had the samurai. They worked directly for the daimio.
(08:58):
The daimio were the lord who they owned all the land.
It's sort of similar to nights in Europe, right because
around the same time there were lords of the land
and peasants that worked the land for the lords, and
then knights would protect the lands. Right. Yeah, that's another
good comparison you with your comparisons called the comparison queen.
(09:22):
The most powerful daimio were the shoguns and they essentially
ran all of Japan collectively. There was the emperor, who
was supposed to be above everyone, but the emperor during
this time did not have very much power. The real
power was the shogun and the shogunate yea. So by
the end of the feudal era, I guess you can
(09:44):
call it, there were about two and sixty damo and
they controlled all of the land. And who was their
military force, essentially the samurai. How does the damio relate
(10:09):
to the showgun? Like, the showgun are the most powerful
daimio that actually, I see. So the daimio are the
people who own the land. They're like the feudal landowners,
and then the showgun are the most powerful damo. Yeah,
like the like the like. The pope is the most
(10:30):
powerful of all cardinals the way the showgun is the
most powerful of all. Damio, Yes, Chris still clear, Thank you,
Matt okay. So, after Tokugawa Iyasu, I'm really worried about
pronouncing his name, even though I said in one of
my videos several times, Nat, what are you saying? You
didn't take a Japanese pronunciation class before we started our
(10:50):
recording today? Oh my god, it was too busy in
my French pronunciation class. So after Tokugawa Iyasu took over,
there were a lot of changes. Towards the beginning of
Tokoyo rule, they did have to rely on power to
make sure that there were no revolts. They were very
(11:11):
harsh to sumurai lords who were not related to the
Tokya family, so whenever sumurai lord failed something in his job,
they would take that as an excuse to fire the
whole family off of the ruling class. But that also
meant that they were producing many unemployed Summarize and Summarize
are basically really good at killing people and nothing else,
(11:34):
So you know these kind of unemployed people roaming around Japan.
That's that's really dangerous. They switched their policy to attain
peace through education of the whole country. They brought in Confusianism.
The main takeaways of Confusianism is being nice to your
your superior, be nice to your family, being nice to
your friends, and be nice to me, don't try to
(11:55):
kill them. That was like the official um philosophy that
summarize I need to learn if they wanted to do
a good job. So everybody studied very hard. It worked.
It worked, people started to calm down. They didn't think
that killing was the goal to solution for anything. And
it's it still affects us this Japanese now we we
(12:15):
try to avoid confrontation and it's clearly an effect from
this education. The cool family set up like three years ago. Okay,
everything about that quote is hilarious. The fact that he's like, yeah,
you know, be nice, men, don't don't kill people. Yeah, yeah,
that and just the fact like I love the concept
(12:37):
of an unemployed samurai. Hey will murder for a sandwich? Anyone?
Anyone did that makes sense to you? Like how samurai
could lose their job? Yeah. As you know, Matt, I
always am keen to do a Game of Thrones reference,
which you never get because you've never seen Game of Thrones,
(12:59):
which really is it's a it's a character flaw on
your part. I'm not I'm not gonna lie. And you
know in Game of Thrones, the whole concept is there
were seven kingdoms and they were brought together. That's what
Tokugawa Iyeyasu was. He was like the first ruler of
the seven kingdoms of Japan. Basically the shogunate system was
(13:24):
definitely you had less opportunities for samurai because there was
more unity, essentially more stability. It's like, oh, we're getting along,
we'll shoot the Diamo is like, well, I guess we
don't need as many warriors anymore. So they begin to
lay off the Samurai's so funny. That's it's I mean,
(13:44):
it's it's not funny, but it's funny in that it's
like to think about, like, uh, sorry, samurai, you're laid off. Man,
what am I going to do now? Yeah? It's like,
I don't know, man, maybe you could take an I
T class or something. A lot of them that ended
up in the cities were actually notorious for, uh cause
(14:06):
in trouble, like similar to gang members today. I would
say this is fascinating because it really does point to
human nature and how you need an occupation. You need
to be busy, You need to have a purpose and
a job, otherwise you're causing trouble. And did I mentioned
they have a license to kill? What? Yeah? They could
(14:28):
essentially if somebody was rude to them. Now, as long
as they had a witness that could verify the rudeness
they have, they have the authority to kill on the
spot whoever was being rude to them. What so if
I so, if I'm a drunk peasant and then the
samuraised the straight and I'm like, hey, you look like
(14:49):
a dork in that helmet, the samurai had the right
to just kill me right then and there. Yeah, even
through the Tokugawa era, they had this authority to kill
on the spot. I love the idea that you needed
a witness to the rudeness. What did you just say? Hey,
(15:10):
what did he do? You heard that? Right? I can
kill him? Right? Yeah? Okay. So we see a transformation
during the Tokugawa period, approximately between sixteen o three all
the way up to eighteen sixty eight. You do see
a gradual change with the role of the samurai. Many
(15:30):
of them actually became bureaucrats, while some were successful with business,
others were not. And so you essentially had these proud
warriors that now had kind of menial jobs after peace
was attained, after their officers of municipalities. So what they
(15:52):
do is like office work basically, So they would carry
around swords for nothing to to sit down and do
office work. So like set taxes, print bonds. They were
organized firefighters and dog catching everything you know, the government
does for us. So you could kind of imagine how
Sumrise would feel that their ancestors would fight courageously in
(16:13):
battles and they become legends. Now they find themselves chasing dogs.
So peasants would kind of laugh behind their backs. They
were laugh and summarize, of course, they were not happy
about how they were treated as officers. So summarize, we're
questioning their identity a little bit, and peasants greatly questioned
(16:34):
their importance, and of course that that led to distrust
from people gradually through a course of two hundred years. Wow,
I mean, talk about a career crisis. You're like, man,
I got the sword and I'm here pushing papers, you know,
working at the DMV with your sword on your back.
(16:56):
That might start to make people still nervous. You know,
I just came here to register my vehicle. Why are
you swinging that giant sword? Joking aside, this actually reminds
me of what happens to a lot of veterans, like
army veterans who you know, in today's day and age,
they go to Afghanistan, they go to Iraq, and then
(17:17):
you come here and you're supposed to just like fit
right back into society and like work at Walmart or
you know, work in a retail job, and you're like,
I was literally dodging bullets like a year ago. Well,
I will say that it was more gradual though, like
we're talking over a couple hundred years. It's more comparable
to maybe a grandson thinking about his grandpa who fought
(17:38):
bravely in World War Two, and it's like, I want
to be like Grandpa and like the good old days
where I was could be out there and a war hero,
you know. So another thing about Japan during this time
was that it was very isolated, and so Kyota is
gonna explain why it was so isolated during this time
towards the Middle like any Western country was allowed to
(18:00):
send in missionaries in return for training with Japan, but
some local Christian groups started acting up. The Toka family
wanted to prevent any form of risk, so the Japanese
Christians were prosecuted and the Christian missionaries they were sent
back to their countries, and only the Dutch were were
(18:21):
able to trade with Japan because they came to Japan
solely for the purpose of trade, and that state of sakoku,
it's called takoku, that state of closing for trade continued
for like two twenty years. Because of Sakoku of Japan,
they were able to home their culture as a very
very unique one because they had really no influence from
(18:43):
other countries. But at the same time that caused like
blindness among the ruling class. They had no idea what
was going on outside Japan, and technological advances were were neglected.
(19:06):
I can't believe that the culture kind of stayed the
same for two hundred years. You know, the sixteen hundreds
Japan was kind of similar to eighteen hundreds Japan. That's
just mind boggling to me. Just to kind of back
up a little bit here, you have two hundred years
or so of isolation. You also have two hundred years
or so of peace and stability, and meanwhile, the Samurai
(19:28):
are still part of this culture, and so when things
change after those two hundred years, it was kind of
like a a huge wake up call when they had
to confront the rest of the world. In the eighteen hundreds,
a set of American chips came into Japan, which was
close to trade for a long time, and Japan got
a wake up call. The last time Japana checked with
(19:50):
Western countries, their technologies were not that different. But after
two hundred years, the industry revolution had occurred and steamboats
were made, the massive ships, and they were terrified. It's
like Earth becoming invaded by aliens. Shogun decided to surrender
to America, and then some Sumuri clans in western Japan
(20:11):
plot like Kudatas. The Shogun sent Sunrise to Kyoto to
protect the emperor, but they lost. So now everyone was thinking,
you can't protect us from other countries, and you can't
protect the emperor, what really can you do? So Shogun
was forced to forfeit his title as the ruler of
(20:32):
Japan and the Emperor will be the ruler of Japan
once again. Like knowing what I know about Korean history,
it's really resonates with me, like, you know, it's these
tiny little Asian countries and they've had the same way
of living for so long and close themselves to technology,
so they're still living the way they did in the
six hundreds, and then these American ships come and their
(20:55):
steamships they have cannons on them, they have gunpowder and guns,
and the Japanese are like, what the hell, Like they
just knew that they were no match. Actually, it was
quickly the beginning of the end for the samurai. After this,
their social status went way down. In the eighteen seventies,
the samurai makes up about five percent of the Japanese population,
(21:17):
so we're still talking about almost two million members here,
and they are under direct national jurisdiction. Before we even
get into that, just so I'm clear. The Americans arriving
in the eighteen hundreds, that was the catalyst for this
new government to come into power. Yeah, that was that
(21:37):
was definitely the catalyst. It was, you know, it was
a few years. There is a civil war between those
who want to westernize and bring the emperor back into
power and kind of the more traditional the shogunate. Yeah,
who are like, no, this is the way we've done it,
and and this is the way we should keep doing
(21:58):
it and be old school and have our samurai. Yeah,
samurai actually find themselves on both sides of the battle,
but ultimately those who favor westernizing when and so we
we call this the Meiji Restoration. So the return of
the Emperor Meiji, the show gonna is gone. And now
we have a period of rapid industrialization and westernization and
(22:24):
essentially embracing the rest of the world and quickly modernizing.
And meanwhile, what are we gonna do with these samurai.
The new government had a lot of knowledge of the
world outside Japan. They thought they had to modernize as
quickly as possible so that they will be treated as
an equal to the western superpowers. The job of the
(22:45):
samurai was obsolete, and the way of thinking of sumurizing
was obsolete. The new government told them give up your rule,
but in return, we'll we'll pay for your living costs.
So they were taking away their catana stors, they were
taken away their class, they were taking away their provinces.
A few years later, the government realized this is not sustainable,
so they said, um, sorry. In the second thought, we
(23:06):
can't afford to do it, so we'll give you like
a retirement pay this year, last you for like five years.
So good luck. And then so they went off somewhere successful.
But most words, they realized how hard peasant life was,
how hard craftsman life was. I love the idea of
a samurai be given severance pay. Here's your pink slip.
(23:31):
We won't be needing your murderous swordsmanship anymore. Good luck
in your new career. Don't call us because we don't
have a re education program. Goodbye. Yeah. So, things as
you can imagine, are not going well for these cameras.
So there is one final revolt, and essentially this is
(23:52):
the what we're gonna hear is the end of the samurai,
maying Summarize moved to the west where there was like
a safe house for Summarise who couldn't adapt to the
new age. For the lack of better analogy, it's like
they were forming a union, so the Sumurai union. They
were plotting Kudita, and one day these young Summarize revolt
(24:15):
against the central government. There was a lot of casualties
on both sides, but the new center of government bought
the latest firearms from the West. They invested a sick
amount of money, and they took this as an opportunity
to demolish the sumurise that were remained, and that was
the real end of the Sumurai class. Mm hmm. This
(24:40):
is so many implications in our current life about people
who can't adapt to a new world, right. Yeah, well,
not only that, but the samurai. For hundreds of years
they have this this individual authority that they had, the samurai,
(25:00):
and now they're like, what, we have to obey this
chain of command. They no longer rule their own destiny. Essentially,
we're just now cogs in the machine, like all of
us listening like Game of Thrones, which you would know
the reference if you had ever seen Game of Thrones, Matt,
which I am holding it against you from an outsider's
(25:22):
perspective and having this very romanticized image of samurai, it
is sad and that it's like the death of something
very traditional and something very unique to this culture. But
then knowing what we know now that samurai were kind
of jerks. They were allowed to just kill you on
(25:42):
the spot for rudeness. Maybe the murder and mayhem and lawlessness,
Yeah maybe maybe not, Maybe that's not so great. Thank
you so much to Kyotako for being our expert today.
You can find him and all things about Japanese culture
by googling Metro Classic Apaneese. And let's introduce Helen to
(26:04):
a different film about Samurai other than the Last Samurai.
So what are what are your favorite Samurai films other
than the Last Samurai? Let us know tweet us at
job Slete pod. That's at job s Elete Pod. Job
Slete is produced for I Heart Radio by Zealots manufacturing
(26:25):
hand Forge Podcast for You. It's hosted by us Helen
Hong That's Me and Matt That's Me. The show was
conceived and produced by Steve Zamarky, Anthony Savini, and Jason Elliott.
Our editor is Tommy Nicole, our researcher is Amelia Paulka,
our production coordinator is Angie Hymus, and theme music is
by the mysterious Breakmaster Cylinder. Special thanks to our I
(26:48):
Heart Radio team led by Nikki Etre, Katrina Norvell, Ali Cantor,
Mangesh Hotti, Kador, Will Pearson, conal Burne and Bob Pittman.
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