“I know that you believe you understand what you think I said, but I’m not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.” Robert McCloskey
My first encounter with the word “shoganai” came in a conversation involving a Welshman, 3 Japanese ladies and me. When the topic of ancestry came up, I mentioned that I was Canadian, to which the Welshman quipped “shoganai ne”. The women laughed, but as I hadn’t heard the word before, I asked what it meant and he said “Shoganai means “it can’t be helped, there is nothing you can do”. In this context, it was clear that the joke was that I wished I were Welsh, with all its attendant qualities of culture and history, but was doomed to forever remain Canadian.
More recently, I‘ve heard the term “shoganai” (literally shiyou ga nai, which means “there is no method or way) used in reference to both the ongoing national political fiasco and the tragic aftermath of 3/11. Given my early experience and the current contexts in which it was being used, I became curious to understand the “real” meaning (nuance) of the term. I began by referring to electronic resources (the internet) and also asked my students. In discussing the meaning of the word “shoganai”, I was struck by the variety of explanations and examples given, and truly intrigued by their direct contradictions. Case in point: “Shoganai would be used to describe the earthquake and tsunami” said one student. Another said “you would never use “shoganai” to describe the earthquake or tsunami.” So, what exactly does “shoganai” mean and in what contexts can it be properly used?
An internet website called “shogani” gives the following definition; Shoganai: It could not be helped. literally, there is no way of doing, or nothing can be done. Shoganai is the equivalent of c’est la vie, but with an important difference: where c’est la vie and its foreign variants focus on external circumstances, shoganai focuses on the inability of the actor to change those circumstances. This particular perspective seems to fit with what my friend had said, that I was forever doomed to be Canadian, however it didn’t explain the contradiction between using or not using it in the context of 3/11.
One student looked up the term in his Japanese dictionary and came up with the following: shiyou ga nai: The way/how we do it (is not or we don’t have it). To him it meant “there is not a way or the way has been lost.” For him, “shiyou ga nai” referred to a process. If you had made a mistake in the process, if you had reached a dead end, “shiyou ga nai” was an admonition to go back to the beginning of the process and start over. In that sense, to me, shiyou ga nai was an appropriate term, almost theme, for the election of the DPJ in 2009. The “system is broken” so we need to go back to the beginning and fix it.
Other students, without referencing a dictionary, described “shoganai”as a word used with subjects like God, nature, luck or the weather. For them, shoganai was used to express acceptance of the vicissitudes of life, much like the famous French phrase “C’est la Vie”.
In contrast, other students’ perspectives were that shoganai was applicable after personal self-reflection. Their example was when someone studied hard for an exam but failed. In this situation they asked; “Was there someone to blame for the failure, and if so, who? Is it proper to assign blame when you fail a test or should the failure just be accepted?” After all, the event has finished so there is nothing that can be done. From these students’ perspective, after self-reflection, regardless of “blame”, the use of “shoganai” was appropriate as it signified acceptance (what’s done is done) and implied a willingness to move on. “There’s no use crying over spilt milk” might convey a comparable idea.
Another example suggested that “shoganai” represented commitment. Their example was a situation where a woman decides to leave an alcoholic husband. In this case, the use of “shoganai” means two things: first, there is a preferred “way” (a happy, stable marriage) but that “way”no longer appears to exist so “shoganai” implies acceptance of an unfeasible situation and second, she sees no alternative but to go ahead with the less preferred course of action and leave the failed marriage. “Shoganai” implies both acceptance of her failed marriage and commitment to move on in her “new” life.
Another example came from a businessman, who frequently travels and must participate in meetings in different cities. He describes a situation in which he had a report to present so had to bring some documents. He also had to travel to the meeting, so he had to catch a train. In his rush to catch the train, he realized that he had forgotten the documents for his presentation. If he went back for the papers, he would miss the train. If he caught the train, he would be forced to attend the meeting without the documents. For him, much like the divorce example, “shoganai” implies both the acceptance of the fact that he cannot bring the documents to the meeting and the acceptance that the less preferred course of action (attending the meeting without the documents) is the best he can do, in the given context.
As for the conflict between using or not using “shoganai” with reference to the earthquake and tsunami, the discussions concluded that it was appropriate in both cases. From one perspective, “shoganai” is applicable when describing the inability to predict earthquakes and tsunamis. There is no way to accurately predict when and how severe earthquakes will be. On the other hand, after the earthquake and tsunami event, shoganai can describe the speaker’s opinion that they can do nothing to help, that they are helpless to change what has happened.
Three things became apparent to me during my discussions about this topic. First, while the words “there is nothing you can do” are used to describe “shoganai”, in some cases that nuance is not true. For some speakers, “shoganai” implies commitment, not helplessness. Second, “shoganai”, like other Japanese words, can convey many different meanings including acceptance, resignation, helplessness, despair, or even commitment, depending on the context in what it is used and the feelings of the speaker. Finally, people have different time paradigms. For example, some people are past-present; others past-future, while others are present-future so depending on their time paradigms, shoganai can be referring to the past, present or the future.
As for me, I have lived in Japan for many years now and plan to stay for many more. Shoganai ne.
