Chrysanthemum and the sword(菊与刀书评)

1、Book report The Chrysanthemum and the Sword: Patterns of Japanese CultureComments on Japanese peoples characterThis little book is written by Ruth Benedict and published in 1946, one year after the World War II being brought to an end. In fact, the author didnt expect the war would end so soon. She

2、wrote the book in order to predict how Japanese government, army and people would act in the final stage of the World War II, and after the war. This is a classical example of theories leading action, as the book did guide the US occupied and rebuild Japan, which helped Japan became such a great pow

3、er once more in the modern world.The book mainly focused on Japanese culture pattern, which is ordered by the US military as they wanted a specific research on whether Japan would surrender in the end or they would fight to the end. In stead of giving the answer directly, Benedict decided to look in

4、to the history and daily life of normal Japanese people. She did believe, which is also the most valuable thing in her works, that every people in the world has their own good point, no matter how evil they might seem during hard time, for instance, during the war. I myself regard this as the topic

5、sentence of the book, referring to those two symbols of Japan, the chrysanthemum and the sword.Benedict also has another famous book called the pattern of culture, which mainly based on Native American, the Indians. On the first page of that book written in bold front was as following: “At the very

6、first, God gave every people a cup, and from the cup that people begin to drink their life. I think this means people develop their own characters, or to say, culture, to maintain the society structure, state organization, family relationships and etc. Also, though this very sentence did not show up

7、 in the book about Japan, the idea how people develop their culture and how cultures develop the people is the guide theme.Talking about theme, we should move into more specific topic about the Japanese people, the leading hero of the book, though they still are enemies to the author at that time. F

8、rankly speaking, Professor Benedict took this well in her works, giving her nations enemy country a quite fair definition. And the following I would retell some of her ideas about Japanese culture, but also in which I would add much of my own feelings aroused by reading the book.The chrysanthemum st

9、ands for two major things in Japan, depending how you understand it: the first one is the symbol of the Japanese royal family, in which the inferior God like ruler and the only emperor would present themselves in the human world, according to Japanese ancient tales. The other meaning is about the Ja

10、panese nation flower, the chrysanthemum itself, which is one of those flowers first cultivated by human on Japans land. Since people put all kinds of meanings on the flower already, like the flower stands for tenderness and strength at the same time, or beauty, patience and strong will, especially t

11、hose figures quoted from Chinese famous poets, mostly in Tang Dynasty. By the way, Japan first learned how to build up its own politic system in 6th Century, greatly influenced by its western neighbor. So, as a result of this, the chrysanthemum spirit, or to say, the bright beautiful and decent side

12、 of the Japanese culture, is kind of another version of Tang Dynastys value system: A great emperor and all things go in a very organized way, making the human world runs so perfectly, like it is almost heaven.Think about the picturewhere ladies all dressed in those fancy Japanese style clothes, ser

13、ving tea in a well decorated room with Chinese drawings or handwritings on the walls, or, clinging to the plain color umbrella in their hands, lightly leaning against their shoulders. Isnt that beautiful and peaceful? Though I personally am not favor of those make up when they are too thick or too w

14、eird. But I guess we can all take this idea as granted, a people who have this high awareness of beauty certainly would respect the value of life and the law of nature.But very unfortunately, Japan didnt copy all the philosophy theories that our forefathers have written down. Instead, they picked ou

15、t what they want from the ancient works, and threw all those might do some harm to the stability of their power system. In fact, Japanese people kept developing their own unique way of seeing the world and treating the people. That would lead us to the other symbol of Japan, the sword. The sword wou

16、ld never confuse people, as it presents a rather clear idea than the chrysanthemum. It means power, strength, even violence. There is a well-known theory about the government, which calls it the minority-owned powerful machine, the necessary evil. Ancient Japanese may not have heard of this modern t

17、heory, but they did put the idea into practice well. The first tribes developed into small countries, and small countries fought against each other till the most powerful one beat every one else, and finally unite the main island. Its kind of like what happened in China, as Qing Dynasty rule the oth

18、er six powerful kingdoms by force, might give the other civilization around China some important experience. But this time Japanese rulers did better than Qing. We all know that Qing collapsed very soon after its first emperor died, because of the cruelty his power forced on its people, once without

19、 the definite military and political pressure it can not hold longer. Japanese didnt learn from the following empire s act on the mainland, instead the Japanese ruling class thought it foolish to be that nice to people as the Han Dynasty did in its first years. It took a totally different policy, bu

20、ilding up a loyal class, with superior power and higher social position. Directly translation may seems misguiding, but its well-taken in the western world, people call them the Japanese knights, The Wusi class. Now the Japanese still call our country Qina, maybe its because its system of promoting

21、soldiers power and interest is first copied from the Qing Dynasty, and they felt thankful to this great teacher and want to give it a memorial, which after hundreds of years, we Chinese ourselves never really feel the same way.The sword means a lot in ancient Japanese culture as the symbol of the wu

22、si class. Only those who suffered a lot during training and won his own honor by fighting through bloody battles can win the right to carry two swords, also win the glory to serve a master. Those robbers may also have a sword with them, but they can only carry one, and always shorter, making them lo

23、ok pathetic when compared with a real Wusi. It had become a rule, though not a written law, among the Japanese people for a long period of time. You can always easily tell whether the person walking towards you has a master or not in the old time, not based on his clothes, but from his looking and a

24、ir around him. A master is not simply a landlord like we had for more than two thousand years on the mainland, if you confuse those two definitions that means you actually think the Wusi as slaves, which is totally wrong, no matter how similar it might seems. A master is a high rank Wusi, which mean

25、s he can directly sever the emperor, at least on paper. This may not be the same in the reality, as the emperor is always a symbol and his God-given power is always seized by the most powerful Master, who calls himself the Chongkun. However, the less powerful masters still have to vow their faith to

26、 the emperor, and that is the only way to earn respect and the land, then the right to maintain his own army. In this way, the Japanese land is divided into pieces, kind of similar to what happened in western world in middle age. And those really helped to shape and strengthen the Japanese power sys

27、tem.So, that makes a literal figure of Japan the country, a strong handsome young man carrying a sword, with a beautiful flower in his hand. Smiling at the flower, the young man put his other hand on the sword, which makes a scene that indicates a paradox. Japanese is a people who have a strong sens

28、e of the beauty of life, while at the same time, also a strong sense of the “beauty of violence and death. Based on this special character, they developed such a unique power system and society organization form. Resulted of the system, weakened centre power couldnt influence even the rural area out

29、side the capital city. Endless wars are one of the features of the countrys history, which destroyed lives and fortunes, but also cultivated the spirit of an aggressive and tough nation character. As soon as the US navy sent gun boats to threat Japan to perform its open-door policy, Japan bowed befo

30、re these western invaders , and, for another time, as in 4th century learning from China, learn from the enemies. They know how to appreciate the advantages of their opponents, no matter how they feel shame when they are beaten. They would rather swallow the pain and shame first, and take all costs

31、to copy the successful way of building up a world power, and, they finally did.But as we all know, also being the main theme of the book, when Japan got really powerful it will resort to taking violent measures to use its nation wealth. It simply cant stay in the state when all the flowers are bloss

32、oming. Japan are doomed to be the cause of a great war since they bowed their noble head before the American savages. This time, Japan paid all its resentment and shame back to the ones it learned from, no matter now they are strong or weak, The US and China, as referring to. So I may draw my own co

33、nclusion here that a nation, or to say, a people, develops its unique character under different kinds of influence, and will influent the other people for certain one day. There is no way to put people in a isolated space without contact from outside world, so its very important to give them good ex

34、amples, or, for the people itself, learn the best part of others. The case of Japan warned us that simply copy another powerful countrys way to success, also we need to learn why they pick the way, how they prevent the potential harm caused by the way they develop, and whether it is suitable for us or not. The flower may seem beautiful to everyone, but one man s meat is another mans poison, not to mention there is always a sword around, waiting to hurt someone who is not careful enough. Just like its hard to figure out a persons thoughts