Ito Hirobumi and Samurais

It is heartwrenchingly painful to admit my ignorance. But I had no idea that Ito Hirobumi was Japan's first premier after the Meiji Restoration, no idea that he was known as the Bismarck of Japan, and no idea that he had played such a massive role in drafting the country's constitution and in Japan's subsequent developments.

I only knew he was the first governor-general of Korea during Japan's colonization of the Korean Peninsula, and that he was assassinated by Korean patriot Ahn Chang-gun, whose statue is now erected on Namsan in the middle of Seoul.

Hirobumi was born into a poor peasant family and it was only by adoption that he was raised to the lowest samurai class. Apparently, the samurai lost their property during the Meiji Restoration and subsequently had to earn their living like commoners.

"That they remained the backbone of society was due not to their inherited wealth or status, but to their culture, their tradition of public service, and their aspirations for advancement, " wrote Kentaro Hayashi in an article titled "Japan and Germany in the Interwar Period."

That's good to know, given that my initial and somewhat lasting impressions of samurais were of people with extraordinary martial skills, who moved about in the dark killing people, and then do drastic things like slicing their own bellies if they were ever caught by their enemies. A case of watching too many samurai movies as a teen, and of worshipping Japanese samurai actor Hiroyuki Sanada, who must be a senior citizen by now.