Samurai

known as seppuku. The Japanese during the 12th century believed it to be more honorary for a samurai so stab a sword through their chest and commit suicide rather than be captured or lose to the enemy. According to the Encyclopedia Britannica “Being an extremely painful and slow means of suicide, it was favoured as an effective way to demonstrate the courage, self-control, and strong resolve of the samurai.” Samurai’s would also commit seppuku if their leader died in battle so they could show…

Jiu-Jitsu didn't really expand until about the 1700s when it spread across Asia. The samurai used Jiu-Jitsu in combat as a way to disable armed and unarmed opponents. In 1882 a man named Jigoro Kano developed a form of Jiu-Jitsu based on throwing your opponents it later became known as Judo. Then in 1914 a student of Kano named Mitsuyu Maeda…

the country, wiping out Japanese industries and causing unemployment. Japanese people were discontent and turned toward the anti-bakufu (anti-shogunate) movement. The Sonno Joi (revere the emperor and expel the foreigners) movement then started. Samurai, court nobles, daimyo, and peasants supported the movement. The anti-foreign sentiment began to be directed against not only the foreigners, but also the Shogun. A political activist in the Choshu domain discovered that if himself and his army…

My grandfather was stationed in Okinawa, Japan during the Vietnam War. He was in the U.S. Army for 20 years, and was in Japan for a large portion of the time that he served. It was in Okinawa that he met my grandmother, Hisaco. Shortly after meeting they got married and my grandfather was able to return back to his home town of Fort Worth, Texas for a little while, and my grandmother traveled back to Texas with him. About a year later, my father was born at a hospital in Fort Worth. Right before…

shock the audiences. The first Kabuki show was performed in 1603. Eventually, it grew into a stylized art form that still remains popular today. Kanadahon Chushingura is one of the most-beloved Kabuki plays. It tells a story of forty-seven ronin (samurai without a leader) avenging their lord's death. People who want to see real Kabuki should attend a showing of Tokyo theater troop's Gekidan Shinkansen. One of the conventions of kabuki theater is that people in the audience will make…

hours to read probably about two hours maybe a bit more not that much time compared to some books that I’ve read, might have dragged those out or just didn’t buckle down and start reading like I did with this book. This book was about a Japanese samurai who had to help someone who didn’t realize their purpose and with that in mind I learned that sometimes people need a push to figure out what to do in life; also, there were many facts in this book that are about Japan that I didn’t know like…

If George Washington and Robert E. Lee were young men today, they would be Boy Scouts and enthusiastic supporters of Scouting, as I am. In fact, in his Sept. 1796 letter to Alexander Hamilton, George Washington himself promoted youth assemblies and behavior strikingly similar to Boy Scout camporees that would take place 125 years in the future: “…but that which would render it of the highest importance, in my opinion, is that at the juvenile period of life, when friendships are formed and…

the Museum has a lot of these coins. When I left on Thursday, there were still six more boxes that no one had begun scanning. As a personal highlight of the internship, on Tuesday, I was able to oil an authentic 13th-century Japanese wakizashi (Samurai short sword) that was crafted by the legendary Japanese swordsman Masamune. It is perhaps the most precious artifact that the Truman Museum holds as there are only about a dozen of Masamune swords left in the world. On Thursday, I finished my last…

Scarcity is the needs and wants of the people cannot be met by the environment. Shortage of water, food can be grown because of harsh environment, running out a raw material and going as far as invading other countries for resources, that is the consequences of scarcity. Scarcity is a significant enduring issue because it has had a long-lasting negative effect on people up until the present time. An example of this occurring is of the Haitian people of Africa, they couldn’t afford nutritious…

as Nakoudo. The Nakoudo can be a parent, relatives, friends or even a matchmaking company. The parties exchange pictures (photographs) and information such as education, wealth, etc. The tradition dates back to 16th century Japan and the Japanese samurai clans practiced it initially. Later it spread to rest of the parts of Japan and the picture brides conformed…