[To be samurai is not to commit harakiri] 切腹ばかりがサムライではない

I was watching "The Last Samurai" with my family during this Golden Week. There is one thing I thought it. It is a beautiful movie with a lot of Japanese virtue. I also find it interesting to see a gaijin (Tom Cruise) getting along closely with Japanese samurai families. He learns swordsmanship while belonging to the family in the village. As a foreigner of a Caucasian face, he gets assimilated to the rural life in Japan.

I start wondering why the samurai should choose to die (not a suicide) in the end. And why is it so dramatic and impressive? This is why there are more than 30,000 people kill themselves a year? They choose to die (to commit suicide) because they want to put an end to their lives in a dramatic way? Is this how Harakiri (cutting the belly) had become a ritual form in old times? - I don't think so. I do not think those two things (the ritual suicide and the suicide of today) are attributed to the same sentiment or spirituality.

But is Harakiri really the core spirit of Samurai? Isn't it too much focused to represent samurai? The Samurai spirit is not just to kill himself or someone else, just like the Americans spirit is not about always eating hamburgers, dealing with illegal drugs with a gun on the other hand. That's a stereotype.

The best part of the movie, by the way, is when a girl (widow) appears. She takes care of Tom Cruise kindly. She is a very reserved kind of female. Most women must have been like that in old times but I don't see anything like that in Japan today. She is quite and doesn't speak much. She diligently does all the house work. - In Japan nowadays, I always come across men and women who don't speak up, but they are rude at the same time, especially on the trains in Tokyo, Kanagawa, Chiba, Saitama, or in the shopping malls of the same places.

I once told about it to a forty-some year old girl in my former company. I said "I like that girl in the movie. That's my dream girl." She said loudly, "No girl is quiet and obedient on this planet. You have to wake up, big boy." Then she added, "HOW OLD ARE YOU, ANYWAY??"