Top 10 HORRIFYING Facts You Didn’t Know About SAMURAI - DEBUNKED

As an Ortientalist I was requested by many of you to talk about this video so here I'll explain how things actually worked in Japan and try to give you the most honest and unbiased point of view possible to the matters discussed in the original video by Toptenz channel.

Samurai (侍?) were the military nobility and officer caste of medieval and early-modern Japan.
In Japanese, they are usually referred to as bushi (武士?, [bu.ɕi]) or buke (武家?).
By the end of the 12th century, samurai became almost entirely synonymous with bushi, and the word was closely associated with the middle and upper echelons of the warrior class. The samurai were usually associated with a clan and their lord, and were trained as officers in military tactics and grand strategy. While the samurai numbered less than 10% of then Japan's population, their teachings can still be found today in both everyday life and in modern Japanese martial arts.
As aristocrats for centuries, samurai developed their own cultures that influenced Japanese culture as a whole. The culture associated with the samurai such as the tea ceremony, monochrome ink painting, rock gardens and poetry were adopted by warrior patrons throughout the centuries 1200–1600. These practices were adapted from the Chinese arts.
In general, samurai, aristocrats, and priests had a very high literacy rate in kanji. Recent studies have shown that literacy in kanji among other groups in society was somewhat higher than previously understood.
Some samurai had buke bunko, or "warrior library", a personal library that held texts on strategy, the science of warfare, and other documents that would have proved useful during the warring era of feudal Japan. One such library held 20,000 volumes. The upper class had Kuge bunko, or "family libraries", that held classics, Buddhist sacred texts, family histories, as well as genealogical records.
A samurai was usually named by combining one kanji from his father or grandfather and one new kanji. Samurai normally used only a small part of their total name.

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Link to the original video by TopTenz

   • Top 10 HORRIFYING Facts You Didn’t Kn...  

Further note: As for the mistreatment that the "brutal samurai" used to mete out on the poor puppies, here how they would have fun in France in nearly the same age.

[ In 16th-century Paris, a popular form of entertainment was cat-burning, in which a cat was hoisted in a sling on a stage and slowly lowered into a fire. According to the historian Norman Davies, “The spectators, including kings and queens, shrieked with laughter as the animals, howling with pain, were singed, roasted, and finally carbonized.”48 Also popular were dogfights, bull runs, cockfights, public executions of “criminal” animals, and bearbaiting, in which a bear would be chained to a post and dogs would tear it apart or be killed in the effort". ]

Source: Steven Pinker, "The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined", pag. 123

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Music:
intro ES_Knights Templar 1 - Johannes Bornlöf

outro ES_Knights Templar 2 - Johannes Bornlöf