I talked about kokuminsei (if you want kanji, 国民性) last time, the short list of features that ties each of us to our home country. Another facet of this "national personality" in Japan is the widely-used mantra shikata ga nai (仕方がない、sh-kah-tah ga NAH-ee), which translates as "it can't be helped" and is used by Japanese whenever they face a difficult situation that they feel powerless against. Don't like the current policies the government is adopting? Is there some aspect of society that you dislike? Just say shikata ga nai, or its more common version, sho ga nai (しょうがない, "there's nothing I can do about that"), and you'll feel better. It's really the perfect excuse -- you can even say shikata ga nai about stupid foreigners who think Japanese say shikata ga nai too much. In a country that crams half the population of the U.S. into an area the 1/25 the size, getting along is very important, and I guess these magic words help facilitate that harmony. On the other hand, there are times when people could do something about a particular problem, be it racism or sexism or the government's wasting money on needless public works projects, but people are so used to saying that nothing can be done about a problem that it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
A similar concept is the idea of gaman (gah-MAHN), which means to endure that which you can't change. The ability to tolerate a bad situation without complaint is considered a very good quality for Japanese to have, and much of life in Japan involves sucking it in and putting up with the little things we wish were different. Apartments in Tokyo, often re-branded with the Japanese-English term "mansion" to make them sound more grandiose, are too small to comfortably raise a family. Cities are urban jungles, prices for many necessary products are high, the population of the country is projected to be just 27 at the end of the current millennium, and our local bank pays 0.02% interest per year on a 1-year CD. The only thing you can do when faced with such adversity is gaman, just put up with it without complaint, or you'd go crazy. As with the phrase shikata ga nai, which helps Japan get along more harmoniously but also causes people to fail to take action when it's called for, gaman is both a stoic virtue as well as the source of problems. If you've got a pregnant wife and the restaurant manager apologizes that there isn't a no smoking section for you to sit in, as happened to me years ago, it's definitely not a gaman situation.
Here are today's "really cool products" that I thought were especially noteworthy. Note: the J-List links below may be for adult products and should probably be considered "not safe for work." To see all the J-List products, check out J-List or the JBOX.com updated products link.
 | eonna March 2006 Mmm, new issue of eOnna, always a treat. I mean, an adult mag where the girls are...not even naked? (well, 99% of the time) |
 | Shitsurakuen -- Rina Akiyama Rina Akiyama is so very cute. Here is a great photobook featuring her hot bod. |
 | digi KISHIN -- Chizuru Ikewaki A new digi KISHIN DVD, a kind of DVD-based digital photobook, celebrating Chizuru's beauty. |
 | No-Cut 3 Hour Special -- Natsumi Mitsu The No Cut series is back again, a popular DVD line that focuses on one lovely Japanese star for 3 hours, with lots of her great "ecchi" performances. |
 | Comickers Art Style vol. 2 I have to say, I just love the art style and quality in Comickers. This is the 2nd volume and it looks great. |
 | NANA 1 (region 2) Anime of Nana -- I have to put this on my list of things to see as soon as I get back to Japan. In the meantime, here's the first DVD. This is, like, the most popular shojo manga story since, like, the dinosaurs walked on the Earth or something. |
 | Mitsuki Sawatari 1/6 Scale Figure -- He is my master A rather sexy figure from the He Is My Master anime/game. |
 | Pokemon DX Plush -- Pikachu Pokemon is very popular in Japan these days, and this is a really cute plush from Bandai. |
 | Rabbit Bride ~ Usagi no Hanayome Beautiful "H" manga in this new manga offering today. Great art. |
 | 1082 Kodama Figure -- Clear *Running* More Kodama figures from the popular Hayao Miyazaki film Princess Mononoke. |
 | Sushi Candle *C* -- Ebi, Tako & Akagai More sushi candles. It would be such a waste to burn them since they look cool, but that would also make for a special event in and of itself, too. Imagine a tray full of burning sushi candles! A burnt offering to St. Maguro of the Holy Sashimi! |
 | Nyanko Mask -- Pencil Nyanko Nyanko SARS mask. Could you ask for anything else? |
 | Gamakuchi Coin Purse -- Dragon Fly Cool old-style coin purse (really you can put anything in here, SD cards, money, you name it). |
 | Mitsuya Cider Gummy I didn't know that these existed myself. Sounds delicious! Mitsuya Cider is a Ramune-like carbonated drink that's been sold for over 100 years in Japan. |
 | Cinnamoroll "Donburi" Bowl w/Lid A cute bowl (donburi) featuring Cinnamoroll, the cute recent addition to the Sanrio pantheon. |
 | Navy Plum Health Slipper for Women Health Sandals are specially designed to massage the pressure points on the bottoms of your feet. They are pretty cool! |
 | Hello Kitty Daruma (Lucky Cat) Strap -- Gold Hello Kitty as a Daruma...I like this, I really do. |
I'm up here in the Santa Cruz area seeing some family (I love the Internet, it lets me work anywhere!), and we went to a grand place called Roaring Camp Railroad, a mountain with old growth redwoods that were just great to see.
Going through the parking lot. I stopped counting Honda Odyssey's (Odysseies?) when I got to 14. We were driving one, too.
They had a barbecue place and a general store with fun stuff, and various things for kids to do that was old west-style. The highlights were the path through the redwood trees as well as the trip up the mountain in a 1912 steam train.
This is a tree that had lived something like 3000 years. You could put your finger on the points where Rome was founded, when the Magna Carta was signed. I love doing stuff like that, touching really old things and see what vibes I get.
Here's the World Famous Tourists, puffing their way up the mountain. What was waiting for us? I'll post next time...
6 comments:
I had to post just to say the Nana anime is really really good. A friend got me addicted to it right when it started, and i love it. Great music in it, too.
You just have to love the differences between America and Japan, Peter my boy. I wonder how the Japanese would deal with "taxation without representation?" Would they go on with their traditional tea ceremonies, or have a rather different "Tea Party" at a local harbor? Still, I'd love to see some group where someone suggests the solution we (America) had to that little problem: "Why don't we just go shoot a British man with a musket?" I bet that wouldn't fly 'round your parts.
But, Peter, if you want a real "Wild West" experience, just mosey over to the windiest city in America, Dodge City, Kansas! Because, honestly, that's all they have: the wild west and the wind. Yeah.
Finally, my family had an eminent domain problem recently. My father's mother's house is the one she raised my father and aunts in (yeah, it's still around). A while back, FEMA tried to buy it from her because the creek that runs through her backyard is prone to flooding. Believe you me, I've cleaned up her basement more times than I can remember. So our benevolent overlords thought it fit to buy her house and turn the lot into a levee. They didn't offer her as much as she would have liked, so she said no. All the people they offered said no save one. That lot's now a little city-run park. I would guess from your article that, were her street in Japan, there would be a nice levee there now.
"sho ga nai" or "shikta ga nai" sounds to me like apathy. I do understand why it is done in Japan. But if I heard an American say that, I would probably automatically think they were apathetic.
I went to Roaring Camp many years ago. I still do go down to that area, but to areas near there as there is some awesome mountain biking a short distance from that park.
Looking at that picture of the Redwood slice reminded of one of my favorite SNL sketches. Tom Arnold is a park ranger who is doing another one of those "this is the year the magna carta was signed" presentations with a log slice and it all seems to go on normally, but toward the outside of the slice things, well, went off on a tangent. He explains that at *this* point he first proposed the idea of the tree slice and was denied, and *this* point was his second, third, and fourth denials, *this* was the point where he was fired, and *this* was the point where he took matters into his own hands and cut down one of the redwoods to obtain a slice. The sketch ends with real park rangers dragging him off. Good stuff.
Awesome! Seeing Roaring Camp Railroad made my day Peter. My parents took me there several times as a kid, as we always made sure to ride all the functioning antique trains that we could.
*I* know what waiting for you on the tracks ahead!!
Peterd, yes, that's partially true. I'm sure people who make it a point to never vote are certainly in that category...
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