Chivalry, samurai and knight are all historical warrior classes that have far-reaching influence on the so-called "national character". The word "national character" comes from Japanese, which means: the nature and feelings shared by all the people of a country or nation. Then, "national character" can also be understood as "national character" or "national character". Hegel once made a meaningful provision. The connotation of "national character" is not self-evident, and it can only be fully presented through mutual comparison. Chivalrous men in China, Japanese samurai and western knights are all samurai classes with a certain transcendental consciousness, which are closely related to the "national character" of various countries. As a symbol of the cultural spirit of the eastern and western nations with martial colors, they are obviously comparable. Therefore, in order to better clarify the influence of chivalry on our nation. "
1. Cultural comparison of chivalrous, samurai and knight
When comparing chivalrous, samurai and knight cultures, we should pay attention to their differences in social nature and cultural spirit. Chivalry, samurai and knight are the products of different cultural systems. Chivalrous men and samurai belong to the oriental cultural system, and they "* * * share a very strong cultural root system", which comes from the ancient civilization in China. Some people call this cultural system "shame culture". Because this kind of culture pays attention to the emotional social morality and the binding force of public opinion, and emphasizes the reputation of individuals in the group, while knights belong to the western cultural system and are called "guilt culture". It produces self-moral restraint with transcendental religious belief and rational spirit, and emphasizes pure personal honor. Therefore, on the whole, the cultural spirit embodied by knights and warriors is closer than that of knights.
Chivalry is the cultural spirit of the western upper class, and its system originated from the upper class in medieval Europe. Knights themselves are small and medium feudal lords. The acquisition of chivalry is a sign that a warrior enters the upper class, but it is generally hereditary. As a noble title, it must be obtained through long-term service and certain ceremonies. If a child born into a noble family wants to be a knight, he must be seven years old. After the age of 8, according to his background, he went to a higher feudal Lord and his wife as waiters in turn. After 14, he became an attendant, that is, a trainee knight, and received special knight training. 2 1 year-old, he passed strict examinations, solemn ceremonies, oaths and other religious ceremonies before he was officially awarded the title of knight. The culture produced by such a system is obviously a closed and aristocratic culture. Its cultural spirit is also a noble cultural spirit. There are rules in the knight system that knights are not allowed to fight civilians, which shows their temperament. It attaches importance to identity, self-cultivation, keeping promises and respecting laws and regulations, and is a cultural spirit of social order.
Compared with western knights, Japanese samurai are also the ruling class, but their social status is different. In the Order, everyone is equal. Under the puppet-vassal system of Japanese society, the samurai class is hierarchical. When a junior warrior meets a senior warrior, he must change his usual language and attitude and be polite to his rank and status. At the same time, the status of samurai is unsafe. They often fall into poverty and wander around because of the fall of their Lord.
The chivalrous tradition in China culture is different from the western chivalrous culture and the Japanese samurai culture. Chivalry in the west is an upper-class aristocratic culture, while chivalry in Japan is a social intermediary culture, while chivalry in China is a product of popular culture. It is bloody, belittles fame and fortune, and is a cultural spirit that makes society active, but it contains spontaneous tendencies.
As a soldier, the values of China Wushu show its simplicity. Unlike western chivalrous men, China's swordsmen don't think they have any obligation or mission to an abstract spirit, truth creed and social code of conduct. They act impulsively, not because they have to fulfill their responsibilities to a monarch who is closely related to their own vital interests, or to a group who helps themselves physically and mentally. Their values are simple and random emotional factors. They value friendship and are willing to go through fire and water for their friends. They have deep sympathy for the weak in society, especially when they have experienced injustice and unfairness unrelated to their own interests. They often help each other. This is a value influenced by friendship.
Chivalrous morality is the aristocratic cultural spirit of the upper class, which is based on the superiority of personal identity, but it also accumulates some positive factors of the ancient martial spirit of this western European nation, such as "loving and respecting personal personality" pointed out by belinsky; The generous and brave spirit of sacrificing all strength and even life for the oppressed and the forced; Western scholars point out that tradition prevails in Europe as far as the tendency to choose morality is concerned. In the western cultural tradition, chivalry in the middle ages plays an extremely important role in shaping the national character of modern Europe.
It constitutes the so-called "gentlemanly demeanor" among western European countries, and forms the importance that modern Europeans attach to personal identity and honor, as well as manners, manners and appearance. Yearning for advocating spiritual ideals and respecting the romantic temperament of women; In short, it makes the national character of modern Europeans not only contain elegant aristocratic elements, but also have the generous military character of keeping promises, helping others and sacrificing for ideals and honors, but it is often arrogant, easy to go to extremes and too formal.
The personality traits of Japanese samurai are embodied in the so-called Bushido. Bushido, formerly known as samurai's habit, the way of war or the way of bow and arrow, is the general name of the whole personality spirit of Japanese samurai. The most prominent thing in Bushido is "desperate spirit". Japanese samurai often adopt the behavior mode of "losing, not going up and down", "I win, you listen to me; I lost, I listen to you; But I must compete with you. This is a combination of hierarchy and warrior's tenacity, and because of this, this behavior sometimes seems too cruel.
Japanese ancient books recorded such a thing:
Takeda Shingen had an altercation with Garfield's samurai, so he knocked his opponent to the ground and beat him out of the water, stepping on people with his feet. Others came to pull them away ... Xin Xuan told people that winning or losing is not a big deal, but can you tolerate forgetting the foundation of Bushido as a samurai? Both of them were easily punished. Those who stop fighting should be expelled. The ideal life of Japanese samurai is a life of blood and tears. On the one hand, it is a bloody fighting spirit, and it is glorious to die in the battlefield. On the other hand, they have so-called "tears" sympathy for the weak inside, and they always wake up from themselves. Are their samurai status beneath their dignity? The reason why they scrimped, trained hard and fought to the death was to maintain their reputation as samurai.
China's chivalrous personality spirit is manifested in his bloody temperament, his emotional orientation of "favoring the same sex with righteousness" and his extreme free will, all of which are permeated with the so-called "national character" of our nation. The people of China are bloody. They often don't like injustice. Some of them stand out because they are just. They are mainly unwilling to obey, especially those who secretly put arrows behind their backs. Do anything necessary for a friend, and those who are loyal to others in the group are especially respected. They sympathize with the weak and losers, and often some warm-hearted people extend warm hands to them. China people are short of * * *, and often act with loyalty and are not used to the constraints of social norms and social organizations. These so-called (national character) performances are inseparable from the influence of historical chivalrous tradition.
On the whole, the martial tradition in the western chivalry has been completely elegant, degenerated into a part of the aristocratic temperament of the upper class, and completely lost its original appearance. Although the martial arts tradition in Japanese Bushido has retained its strong temperament to a certain extent, it has been eroded by feudal concepts and Confucianism for a long time and has become a dual cultural spirit isomorphic with Confucian personality. The chivalrous tradition in China culture has always remained relatively pure in the folk cultural spirit of the lower classes. It has accumulated a relatively complete and powerful martial spirit, which is a potential factor to add vitality to the whole nation, but it has the tendency of blindness and spontaneity, lacks modernity and needs to be reformed urgently.
The word "Caballarii" comes from the Capitularies Act Collection, which originally meant jockey. In the 7th century, Arab cavalry rode horses with stirrups and waved machetes to the European continent. The Franks and Germans in this land learned to use stirrups from pagans almost at the same time, thus freeing their hands and fighting with weapons at once.
From 1 1 century to13rd century, knight culture really rose. During this period, the Crusades initiated by the Pope formally endowed knights with religious nature and status, and also formally formulated a complete knight system, which is the "chivalry" that people will enjoy in the future.
Chivalry.
Knight's training goes through four stages: serving boy, attendant, trainee knight and formal knight. The period of being a servant usually begins at the age of 7-8. At this time, he entered the Lord's castle. As a servant of the Lord's family, he studied etiquette and various related knowledge while working. When I entered the retinue period, I mainly followed the formal knight to learn the "seven unique skills of knight", namely equestrian, swimming, spear throwing, fencing, hunting, poetry reading and chess playing. The first five items can improve the fighting ability and survival ability, while the last two items are to cultivate good quality cultivation, which is essential for a knight.
After entering the trainee knight stage, you can have your own entourage and participate in the battle. On the battlefield, the flag of the trainee knight will be cut off at the back, shaped like a dovetail, to show the difference from the formal knight. If a trainee knight has accumulated some meritorious military service, he can apply to his superiors to become a full knight, and then the herald will cut off the dovetail on his flag.
Formal knighthood is usually presided over by nobles or military leaders, and sometimes by kings or bishops. If it is the latter, it will be very grand. The formal process is as follows: the host touches the back of the opponent's neck and shoulders with the sword, and then vows loyalty and honor in the name of guardian saints (St. George of England and St. Andrew of Scotland). Then the host sang: "Avencez, rise to Sir XX", XX is generally the Christian name of the knight. "The whole ceremony is over. After that, there are different celebrations, such as the king's banquet, giving cloaks, armor and spurs; Or the model of the church, in which every brother of the church blesses the new people and gives them bibles and crosses, and the new entrants themselves say that they will give up the respect and common names in the world, and so on.
After becoming a formal knight, it is the most basic way for a knight to maintain his honor by strictly observing various institutional dogmas of the knight. Except for some rules made by the knights themselves, all knights require their members to be fair, humble, generous, simple and hardworking, absolutely loyal and tolerant. Like heroes in the epic, they serve the people with their own arms, fight bravely in the name of the church, and protect pilgrims going to the East.
In the literature of the late Middle Ages in Europe, knights are always beautified as a symbol of justice, representing the struggle between good and evil and finally winning. The so-called knight literature is all the rage. Even in Cervantes' works, Don Quixote still has a simple and persistent loveliness. Voltaire, the leader of the French Enlightenment when he was a teenager, was put into the Bastille because a nobleman challenged him for satirizing his personality. The famous Russian poet Mayakovski (whose name is wrong, I forgot a little) died because he was ambushed in a duel. This shows the influence of chivalrous spirit on later generations.
Knight is a very sacred profession, representing the light, the promise of 1000 yuan, self-cultivation and eternal praise.
What is a samurai? In Japanese, the word samurai means waiter (samurai = waiter) and personal waiter. A samurai should abide by the principles of fearlessness, loyalty, ability and courage. But this principle only represents the ideal. A warrior's loyalty and bravery are based on the master-slave system in which his loyal lords can reward the samurai for their contributions.
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Samurai originated in heian period. From the mid-9th century, some local lords began to build private armed forces to defend themselves, and used their expanding power. This armed force has gradually matured into an institutionalized professional military organization, based on clan and master-slave relationship. By the tenth century, the imperial court was unable to suppress the rebellion of local forces, so it had to rely on the strength of samurai from all over the world, and the samurai was further recognized by the central government and became the privileged ruling class in Japan.
Some historians believe that one of the most important reasons for the decline of the China Dynasty was the long-term conflict between civil servants and military commanders, which repelled and belittled each other and caused serious internal friction. Japan does not seem to have this situation. As professional soldiers, samurai are also managers in peacetime. Therefore, samurai are required to learn culture, appreciate art, and be arty in tea ceremony and chess.
Before the Meiji Restoration, samurai was the dominant force in Japanese society, but in terms of system and function, it was more similar to feudal lords and knights in the west, but different from ordinary Asian countries. This situation changed after the Meiji Restoration, and 187 1 was the most important year. Civilians are allowed to ride horses in June, warriors are allowed to "distribute" and "scrap knives" in September, and warriors and civilians are allowed to marry in June 10. At that time, according to (1972) statistics, there were 425872 gentry in Japan, and the total number of their families was 194 1286. Their annual salary consumes one-third of the Japanese government's fiscal revenue. The Meiji government took gradual measures to gradually cancel the salary by issuing bonds or redeeming, thus eliminating the samurai class. In this process, some senior warriors gained titles and became China people second only to the royal family. However, with the defeat of World War II, the Japanese were forced to accept democratic reforms, and the China class became history.
Today, some Japanese still remember the samurai status of their ancestors, but this has no substantive significance. Near the author's residence, a stone tablet stands at the door of a family, which is just a historical relic. But the ideological legacy of samurai such as Bushido is still an important part of Japanese culture.
It is worth mentioning that many junior samurai in life have no money to marry, and their military system and traditional culture of preferring sons to daughters make solving many samurai's sexual problems a social crux. Therefore, the shogunate advocating Confucianism bypassed some family ethics advocated by Confucianism, especially the concept of female chastity. Until Isoroku Yamamoto's generation and even today, the fooling around between samurai (men) and geisha (prostitutes) in pornographic places has been acquiesced and even tolerated by their wives.
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Ninjas are poor people who can't see the sun. They are doing secret and cruel things with the strongest perseverance and the hardest efforts in the world. They live in a place where there is no sunshine, and even their names are ruthlessly omitted.
Now, ninja has become the most dazzling profession in the sun, and everyone strives to be the best ninja, just as now we all strive to be the top student in the college entrance examination. From 15 to 16 100 years, the Tokugawa era existed in name only. Dozens of separatist forces have emerged in Canada, where the central government is not strong, and they have rebelled and attacked each other. Due to the limited land forces of various units, they trained "special agents"-"ninjas" for reconnaissance, sneak attack, assassination and other activities.
The "Heritage Hall" in Ueno Ninja Village reveals the mysteries of Ninja's daily life and cultivation through documents and objects. It turns out that martial arts is only a small part of the ninja's practice, and there are five compulsory subjects, namely "food, fragrance, medicine, qi and body", commonly known as "Ninja Five Ways".
"Food" refers to the diet of a ninja. A qualified ninja usually weighs no more than 60 kilograms in order to haunt branches and roofs lightly. Three meals a day are mainly black rice, oats, tofu and taro, but on the other hand, in order to maintain abundant physical strength, sesame seeds, pine nuts, brown sugar, quail and other foods rich in protein, iron and vitamins are indispensable. This recipe coincides with the "low calorie and high nutrition" advocated by modern life.
"Xiang" means that ninjas can judge each other's economic situation and status by the smell on their clothes. However, in order to conceal their ninja identity, ninjas often use seven transformations, such as businessmen, practitioners and monks. The spices such as clove, sandalwood and cinnamon exhibited in the "Heritage Museum" were used by them to make different body fragrances and enhance the authenticity of transformation.
Medicine is not simple. Ninjas are usually doctors and medical experts, who are good at using various plants and herbs in the mountains to treat injuries. In order to avoid being bitten by mosquitoes when lurking for a long time, ninjas will carry a lot of insect repellent drugs with them, and there are also various drugs used for different tasks, such as incense, strong poison, realgar, epimedium and so on, which is amazing.
"Qi" means that ninjas pay attention to their self-cultivation, so that they can concentrate on it in actual combat, be decisive and brave, and remain shocked, which is strikingly similar to Wu Tangmen's cultivation method in the Song and Ming Dynasties in China.
"Body" means that ninjas pay attention to the exercise of muscles and joints, and at the same time exercise themselves by meditation, breathing, massage, acupuncture and other recovery methods to meet the needs of various martial arts.
In addition to the above-mentioned "Ninja Five Ways", Ninja is also an astronomer and chemist, who can look at the stars to predict the weather and make gunpowder and firearms. For example, the unique weapon made by Sarutobi Sasuke, a famous ninja in history, is a musket with a range of 50 meters, which is twice as long as the best shotgun of the Ming army, which was famous for its firearms at that time. Unfortunately, the ape flew to the sun and the moon and was killed by mistake. From then on, his mysterious weapon was never found, which was cited as a pity by Japanese arms history books.
The martial arts of ninjas are fundamentally different from those of Japanese samurai. Because of their special tasks, ninjas usually use portable short weapons and hidden weapons instead of broadswords or spears. According to legend, there was a kind of hidden weapons in the Wulin of the Central Plains in the Ming Dynasty, named "Bajiaoling". It is made of pure steel, sharp as a knife, thin as paper, and only two inches in size. Scattered all over the floor like a rain flower, and it is highly toxic. Probably by a Japanese ninja. Ninja unarmed combat is also necessary. Fingers as steel as iron pierce the chest and abdomen, tear the neck, split the head, and instantly kill people. Although it is not as extensive and profound as the Central Plains martial arts, it is practical and fully conforms to the ideological basis of "winning with one blow" in fighting.
And the ninja's residence is also very mysterious, and the organs are full of secrets. This is to prevent the threat of ninjas from other separatist forces. It looks like an ordinary house from the outside, but the floor next to the seat is generally equipped with a rotating shaft. When an enemy intrudes, tap the board, and immediately turn your back, exposing your weapon and killing with a knife. The ceiling board is also movable, and when it is pulled down, it is a folding staircase, which is convenient for hiding or escaping. The traditional Japanese door is a sliding door, which is easy to be intercepted by people and makes a lot of noise when entering and leaving. Therefore, the door of a ninja is a revolving door, which can surprise and counterattack the other side without showing emotions. There are secret doors everywhere on the wallboard, either to escape or to hide weapons. There is a room with 17 hidden holes and more than 30 different weapons, which is simply an invisible weapon showcase.
There are countless magical legends about ninjas. Interested readers can look through the records of ninjas in Japan during the Warring States period, or go to Ueno Ninja Village to have a look in person. Today, although the real ninja no longer exists, its hard work, tenacity and tenacity have been passed down as the best part of Japanese character. Perhaps it is this ninja spirit that enabled the Japanese to create an economic miracle after the war.
Ninjas are generally responsible for intelligence work, and samurai are going to the battlefield!