What is "pechin"

The is an Okinawan term for the scholar-officials class of the former Ryūkyū Kingdom (modern-day Okinawa, Japan), the class equivalent of the Japanese Samurai. Though initially culturally different, by the nineteenth century these feudal scholar-officials of the Ryūkyū Kingdom would eventually call themselves samure.

In the last couple hundred years of the existence of the Ryūkyū Kingdom there was a strong push to make Ryūkyū more Japanese, and gradually displace the native language, customs and culture. The once culturally distinct Ryūkyū warrior gradually become more Japanese, to the extent that they adopted Bushido. In Japanese documents from the nineteenth century it is common to find that the Pechin are simply addressed as Samurai, making no distinction to any cultural differences.