The Amazing Code

OldWarriorsHeroes ofMassesBy IaMPEI SHEBA

Tokio.

THE SAMURAI, the two.. sworded warrior of

feudal Japan, stllllives inthe hearts of the people of thiscountry. Like his Americancounterpart, the two-gun man ofthe west, he has long sincepassed out of existence as Ii liv·ing being, but he is very muchalive on the screen and stageand in the literature of the landof cherry blossOms.Stand in front· of arty small

motion picture theater in Japan-there are thousands scatteredthroughout the country - andyou cannot fall to note that oneof· the two featured pictureS isa samurai fUm. The other isusually an American or a Japa·nese film based on modern life.The smaller the movie house thegreater is the pull ot thesamurai ftlm, indicating thedrawing power of the two-sworded men among the tabor-ers, shopkeepers, and poorerclasses. .The surprising thing about

the popularity of samutai ftlmsamong the masses is that inolden times warriors were asoften as not the enemies of thecommon people, especially of .themerchant class. The samuraiwere at the top of the socialscale, then came the farmers,and last of all the merchants-«the scum of the earth, and theywere frequently so treated bythe warrior class. Young bucksamong the samurai thoughtnothing of hiding in lonely al-leys and lopping the h~ad off thefirst layman who passed by justfor the sake of testing his sword.Shopkeepers sometimes lived interror of the samurai.

SC.D. from a WID tmmortcdialnv the cmctet.ClIDllrai-hro-.word.d wcuriora of old Japcm..9Cl1Dllralplctme. cmd playa are certain hila

today.

But those days have long sincepllssed. Today it is a wellknown practice on the legitimatestage, whenever things begin togrow dull, for a producer to puton ••The Forty·seven Ronins 01'Faithful Samurai," the mostpopular and famous samuraishow of all time. There is al·most always art immediate sell-out. • • •"The Forty·severt tton1ns" is

based on an actual occurrence250 years ago. To avenge theirmaster, who was forced to com-mit harakiri by a cruel noble-man named Kira, the forty·sevenfaithful clansmen of ABano,lordof Ako, vow vengeance. For al-most three years they undergountold hardships.When their .leader, Oishi, dis·

covers that Kira has put spieson his traU he plunges intodrunkenness and debaucheryand even discards his wife andchUdren, taking a harlot to livewith him, to delUde the enemyinto false security.Then, during a violent snow-

storm, the forty·seven war.rlorsstorm K1ra's mansion and aftera 1lerce battle they succeed inslaying thetr enemy. They thenmarch to the temple of Senga·kUji, where they lay the head ofKira on their lord's grave.Finally, their task having beenacComplished, they com mitharaklrl and are buried in thesame temple grounds as theirlord. According to the play. thewarriol's commit harakiri oftheir own volition, but accordingto records they were tried andcondemned to take their ownUves.This undoubted1y WS:s t~e

greatest mass suicide in history.It also was, accordJ.na to Japa-nese tenets, the flnest exemplt-:1lcation of the samurai code ofhonor.

Swordmabra ))uy at the r.~ •• d Qrt. III the daya of tb. 1IClIDW'CliIt weraa call1D9almo.t era.acred erathe prl•• thood.

of Japan's SamuraiAncient Warlike StandardsPersist in Modem Day

Japcm... chilch.D c.l.brat. .tbe fOllDdhlvof the .mpir. ))y dreUlDV Inthe revaUa of the aDeI.Dt aalDW'Cli.

Two and a half centuries havepassed since then, but thousandsstlll visit Sengakuji temple inTokio each month to offerprayers to the souls of the loyalwarriors.Besides on the stage and

screen, serials and novels in thenewspapers and mag a z I n e sbased on the adventures of sa·murai are extremely popular.When Japan made the historic

decision to open its doors to thewest in 1854 after having re-mained completely cut off fromthe rest of the world for two cen-turies as though it were anotherplanet, it decided to transrcrmitself into a nation on a levelwith European and Americanpowers..Beginning with the imperial

family, Which adopted westerncourt ClOstumesand customs. thewhole nation took up westernways and culture. Today in out-ward appearance the businesssections of such large citles asTokio and Osaka are equal tothose of the most advancedcountries in the v.:orld.

• • •Education also has been along

western lines. In classrooms·chUdren do not squat on thefloor, but sit on chairs and wearwesternized clothing. They areeducated along modern scientificlines.So today the Japanese people,

particularly those living tit .thecities, are, outwardly, In the.clothes they wear, the bUildingsthey work in, and the food theyeat, more western than eastern.The same may be said of theirmind.. It is their hearts thatremain least changed.Thil perhaps is one reason

why there is such a conflict inJapartese Ufe. The minds of thepeople are turned to the west,but their hearts are in the east.Brought up to respect and emu-late the samurai of old andat the same time to adopt the

customs and culture of the westthe younger people find them-selves in a quandary.There are, however, some

qualities of the samurai whichdo not oon1lict with the cus-toms of the west. Put anyyoungster stUl in his early'teens on the operating table fora painfUl operation and underno circwnstance wUl he let outa cry. .Loyalty is another traitwhich endures.The samurai spirit is most

s t ron g 1Y exemplified todayamong the soldiers, or ratheramong the omcen, for Japanesesoldiers only serve from one totwo years. Among the modernwarriors ·of Nippon one finds avexing confiict going on betweenmind and heart-between west-ern pract:1ces and Japaneseteachings..According to the samuraicode of honor a warrior maynever ~ taken captive. Modernscientific methodl of warfaremake such a thing not only Im-

QeD. MCIN.uIc. Ho9f, h.ro of tb.Rlluo-Japcm••• war. who follow.dIlia .~ror In d.atb ))y m.au of

b~ eraa tokeD of loyalty.

practical but foolhardy. But fewJapan~ oftlcen have ever beentaken captive and lived long totell the story.There are numerous instances

of sirhUar incons1stenc1el andconflicts. How Japan will workthem out is one of the greatproblems of the future.In many respects the samu·

rai of feudal Japan bore astr1k1ng slmilarity to the aremored knights of England. Itwas the essence of old Japanthat all gentlemen must besamurai and all samurai mustbe gentlemen. W~ them, uwas the case with the nobUityand gentry of England, unquet-Uoned obedience and loyaltywere yielded to their superiors-loyalty even unto death.In ~veral impOrtant respects,

however, the samurai differedfrom European knights. 'l'hefpracticed haraklri as part of

whom he owes a deep senae ofgratitude, whether or not hellket the girl.Which may seem stretching

duty to absurd lengths, but thilis nothing compared to what" girl" was w hen Japarteseknighthood was in 110wer. Atthe risk of shocking some read·ers I wUl relate an incident citedby the late Dr. Inazo Nitobe, anauthority on "bushido," as anexample of what ••girl " was inthe good old days.

• • •The story is ot one ot the

greatest characters of Japanesehistory, Michizane, who, falllnga victim to jealousy and calum-ny, is exiled. Not content withthis, his unrelenting enemies arebent upon the extinction ot hisentire family.Mlchlzane's Ion and heir, It ill

very young, has been secreted ina vlllage school kept by a formervusal of Mlchizane, Genzo byname. Orders are forthwith dis-patched to the schoolmaster todeliver the head of the boy.Genzo's flrst thOUghtis to find

a suitable substitute. Noneamong the chUdren born of thesoU bears the least resemblanceto his pro~g6, but there is a ne"IIcholar, a comely boy of thesame age as his master's IOn.Here, then. is the acapegoat!

The teacher visits the home ofthe parents of the ·rtew scholarand makes the suggestion. Therest of the narrative may bebriefiy told. On the day ap-pointed the oftlcer ClOmmissionedto identify and receive the headot the youth arrives.Will he be deceived by the

false head? The oftlcer takes upthe gruesome object before hUn,goes calmly over each featureand In a deliberate, business-

Modem th•• plana r••• Daclta haraldrl-hoD'orabl •• welcl. of the old dayaIilJapcm.

their code of honor and they·showed no gallantry toward thefair sex. "God and the ladies,"was the motto of the Europeanknight, but neither God nor theladies inspired much enthusiasmin the samurai's breast.":aushido," which may Ilter-

ally be translated into "the wayof the samurai," is the moralcode of the Japanese warrior. Itis not a written code. Strahgeas it may seem, religions haveplayed an extremel)' Importantpart in forming it.Buddhism furnished "bushido"

with a sense ot calm trust infate, a quiet lubmisslon to theinevitable.Shintoism, the national faith

of Japan, ineulca~ loyalty, rev-erertce for ancestral memory,and fllial piety into" bushido,"From ConfUcianism 'I))ushido"

adopted the five moral relationsbetween ma.ter and servant(the governing and the gov·erned), father and son, husbandand wIfe, older and youngerbrother, and between friend andfriend.The samurai's unwritten code

laid tremendous emphasil on••girl" or duty, although theJapanese word haa a far, tardeeper signlflcance than theEnglish word duty. It was the".giri" of the forty·seven faith·.tul samura! to avenge their •master even at the cost of theirlivell. It Is the" girl" of Japa-nese to look after unfortunaterelatives. It is the "girl" of ayoung man even today to marrythe daughter of some one to

like tone, pronounces it genuine.That evening in a lonely home

the mother of the child aWaits,but she knows her son wlll notreturn. Her hU.band had for along time been the recipient ofMichizane's bounties, but sinceMichlzane'. banishment circum.stances have forced him to fol-low the service of the enemy. AIone acquainted· with the exile'sfamUy, it was he who had beenentrusted With the task of Identi-fying the boy. headj which inthis caee was that of his ownson.That is the length to which

people went to practice "gtii If

in the olden day. in Japan.The sword was the emblem

of power an" prowess of the

Th. mod.m Japcna••• pi U••• amore ,..pect.d W. thClil cUd lI.r

Jk.d.c.aaor of f.ned days.

samurai.. Consequently swordswere and stUl are held in thehighe.t esteem by the Japanete.In feUdal times only samurai .were permitted to wear IWOrdS.The custom was' to wear twoIWOrdl, a long one to be used in .actual combat and a Ihor\ersword to be employed in com·mitting haraldrl. When a la-murai calle<! on a friend itw~ etiquet for both to remove .their weaponl as a .ign of goodwul.

• • •·JaPaneee swordi excel eventhe vaunted produet8 of Toledo.To cut throu,h a pUe of coppercoins without nicking the bladewas a common feat. The Japa·nese prize their IwordS in thesame way that world famous-\tiollnUts prize their ttddlea.There were Stradivar:ls and

Guarneris among J a pan e .•eswordsmith.. The foUr mOlt ta-mous are Munechlka (tenth cen-tury), Masamune and YOlhi-mltsu (thirteenth century), andMuramala (fourteenth century).A sword by any of th~e geniusescost. thousands' and even tensof thousands of dollars today.History, tradition, and roman~allkerekho With the exploits ofthe wonderful weapons forgedby these masten.Many a temple and almOlt

every famtly detcended from asamurai hoards a IWOrd as anobject of adoration. .Any in-sult to It i. tantamount to apersonal affront. Woe to himwho carelesilly ltePI over aweapon lying on the floor.Japanese audiences ,e e i n g

Puccini's "Madame Butterfty"are horrifled to see Cho-Cho-sankiss the dagger jus.t before tak.ing her life. The IWOrdof the·samurai Ihould, in committing-harakiri, be lifted reverentlyto the forehead, care beingtaken that the steel may noteven be clouded by the humanbreath. To ki.s the sword isre,arded by the Japanese as anin.ult. .A Japanese .word.mith is not

a mere artisan but an inspiredartist and his workshop a sane-wary. D~yhecommenceshiswork With prayer ·and puriflca-tion, or, al the phrase is, "he

(Coatlu.d OD pat.· ."ht.)

SC.D. from ••Th. FOrty·•••• D RoD!Dll,'·IDtat popwar play ODthe .ClIDUraith.m.. k.,. the fcdthiw .oldi.ra are aNut to atOrmthe maaJoa of th.1r

d.cad lDa.t.,. •• D.my.