Japan is dying..."Shoganai"

Shō ga nai (しょうがない)


Shoganai is something like c'est la vie. However, shoganai demonstrates the inability of the person to change the outside circumstances.

 Summer is hot and humid. Shoganai. 

Government workers are not friendly. Shoganai. 

Child Porn?

Sho ga nai!

The Economy?


Sho ga nai.

Women's rights?

Sho ga nai..

Political reform?

Sho ga nai...




It's not the problems that doom Japan it is the lack of answers....the unique cultural ability to shrug your shoulders at anything and everything and utter the most devastating word in the Japanese language.

Shō ga nai (しょうがない)



Example: an idea
Japan already has the foundations of a Military Industrial Complex...a 2 trillion dollar industry...but despite dire economic forecasts it's almost a taboo topic.... the re writing of Article 9 I mean. More so than Child porn. That's not even remotely a joke btw.

Which countries military equipment would benefit from a positive "Quality" image...Japan or China?
Nuff said!
China is at 140 billion dollars and GROWING!!..China....Fucking CHINA!!


Mitsubishi Heavy Industries is a profit making behemoth in wait yet.....







Why this topic now?

I read the word at Hanlonz's site and felt a kick in the stomach just reading it, so the next day (today) I asked a Waseda grad about Child porn and knew "Sho ga nai" was coming but it was almost the first word out of her mouth and I felt ill.

She blurted out...for no good reason I could see;

"America has lot's of crime and lots of drugs."

What do you say to that?

You do what any good debater does and you admit the obvious and add some supporting facts in support of their attack to take the heat out of the fire.  You don't hurl a negative at a negative you throw a positive at it to do many things. To observers this is an odd and endearing moment. Perhaps only former University debate team members get this but I would hope it makes sense to all. It's not easy to NOT give knee jerk defensive counter arguments. Embrace reality/ the obvious with both arms.

She graduated from the then 2nd most prestigious University in Japan and she simply couldn't even begin to look at the topic from any position besides the bunker ed defensive one.  I then tried to discuss Women's Right's and she ....outta nowhere said:

 "men with money and power were more genki and were kinda prone to adultery."

Wait...poor men don't have the cheating gene? (nah, I bit my tongue)

I wasn't even going in that direction but I had to pause and marvel at the surrender. It was a big fat:

I DON"T WANNA TALK ABOUT THIS SHIT!!

kinda moment.

I would post more but their was no real discussion. There rarely is.

The lack of a solution eventually becomes a bigger problem than the problem itself. If that sentence seems odd it's because you have not lived in Japan long enough....or maybe you have been here too long?