Some truth behind it

The Last Samurai... I'm sure a lot of you out there have seen it. (It's a Tom Cruise movie after all. And it has to do with samurai too hahhaha)

Meiji Period, 10th Year. A civil war that had lasted 6 months. Samurai against the new Government. It all began when one guy, Saigou, came up and decided to become leader over all the Samurai who have lost their status. Status, being the heirarchy with 4 tiers set up Confucianism in Japan. It's a pyramid with Merchants taking the lowest rank. Then Farmers, Artisans and then the top cats- the Samurai.

After the downfall of the Tokugawa Government (which operated on the aforementioned Confucianist heirarchal system), the new Meiji Government (which operated more on equality of all classes that did not belong to the Imperial family -kind-of-system) was set up. And back to what I said earlier, at the set up of the new Governments, the Samurai basically all lost their 'jobs'. I guess Saigou felt some pity and wanted all the Samurai to get their 'life' back by giving them one last war to fight. Even though he knew that it was a losing one.

We had a very interesting discussion about this in class, on whether or not Saigou was a great person or a really foolish one. Frankly, what he had done, leading all those people to a losing battle, was foolish, but he seems like a really great person, and very sympathetic. A 'romantist' he was, someone said at one point. A very uniquely Japanese way of thinking, giving your own life so others can complete theirs. I don't know, it's pretty cool, it's pretty foolish. You know how they say that there's always a thin line between being a total genius and or a total maniac.

I can really see why people like this image of Samurais so much. They're so mysterious. Dangerous. You never know what they might be thinking. They have weird hairstyles, very restricting clothes. They study for years on sword-fighting, archery, military history, tactics, serving tea. Brutality and elegance mixed up in such a weird way.

Ah, I don't know what I'm talking about anymore hahaha... I'll see you guys around~~