Mottainai

File:もったいない (5305643094).jpg

written on a truck, followed by the sentence "I strive towards zero emission"

is a Japanese phrase conveying a sense of regret over waste, or to state that one does not deserve something because it is too good. The term can be translated to English as "What a waste!"Template:Sfn or the old saying, "Waste not, want not." Japanese environmentalists have used the term to encourage people to "reduce, reuse and recycle". Kenyan environmentalist Wangari Maathai has used the term at the United Nations as a slogan to promote environmental protection.Template:Sfn

Etymology, usage, and translation

Kōjien, widely considered the most authoritative Japanese dictionary, lists three definitions for the word (classical Japanese terminal form ): (1) inexpedient or reprehensible towards a god, buddha, noble or the like; (2) awe-inspiring and unmerited/undeserved, used to express thanks; (3) an expression of regret at the full value of something not being put to good use. In contemporary Japanese, is most commonly used to indicate that something is being discarded needlessly, or to express regret at such a fact.Template:Sfnm Template:Illm, then a professor at Nagano University, noted that the definition (3) in Kōjien was the one used most frequently by modern Japanese.Template:Sfnm The second sense is seen in Japanese newspapers when they refer to members of the imperial family as having been present at such-and-such an event, not necessarily implying wastefulness but rather gratitude or awe.Template:Sfnm Template:Illm, another Japanese dictionary, gives a similar ordering of these definitions.Template:Sfnm

Hasegawa traces this increase in the frequency of meaning (3) to a historical semantic shift in which the original meaning, meaning (1), became less prominent.Template:Sfnm Citing the Kyoto University Japanese literature scholar Template:Illm, Hasegawa states that the word originated as slang in the Kamakura period,Template:Sfnm and that by the mid 15th century had perhaps already acquired the meanings of (2) and (3).Template:Sfnm

An archaic Japanese dictionary dates the use of the term "mottainai" back to the 13th-century.Template:Sfn Two frequently-cited early examples of usages of , given in both Kōjien and Daigenkai, are the Genpei Jōsuiki and the Taiheiki.Template:Sfnm A form of the word, (モタイナ) appears in the late-14th or early-15th century Noh play Template:Illm, apparently in a sense close to (1).Template:Sfnm

The word in resembles a Japanese negative ("there is no "), but may have originally been used as an emphatic ("tremendous ").Template:Sfnm itself is a noun appearing as such in, for example, the dictionary Template:Illm,Template:Sfnm which dates to 1444.Template:Sfnm Daigenkai gives as an alternate reading of the word,Template:Sfnm and it appears written with the kanji , , , , or .Template:Sfnm It means (i) the shape/form of a thing or (ii) something that is, or the fact of being, impressive or imposing (; ).Template:Sfnm The compound that is pronounced as in Japanese appears in Sino-Japanese dictionaries as a Chinese word in a sense similar to (ii),Template:Sfnm but does not, as it is an indigenous Japanese word.Template:Sfnm

The 18th-century Kokugaku philologist Motoori Norinaga, in the preface to his 1798 treatise Tamaarare ('Ice Crystals (like) Jewels'; ) designed to stir people up from their sleepy acquiescence in acquired customs that were not authentically native, and was critical of the use of the word to express gratitude. He felt its use for such a purpose (along with those of Template:Wikt-lang and ) was vitiated by its ultimate derivation from imitating forms of Chinese rhetoric and greetings. In his 1934 essay Nihon-seishin to Bukkyō, the Buddhologist Katō Totsudō (; 1870-1949) included the "aversion to wastefulness" () in a putative series of what he considered to be "core Japanese personality traits".

Modern Japanese environmentalism

In November 2002, the English-language, Japan-based magazine Look Japan ran a cover story entitled "Restyling Japan: Revival of the 'Mottainai' Spirit", documenting the motivation amongst volunteers in a "toy hospital" in Japan to "develop in children the habit of looking after their possessions", the re-emergence of repair shops specializing in repairing household appliances or children's clothes, the recycling of PET bottles and other materials, the collection of waste edible oil, and more generally the efforts to stop the trend of throwing away everything that can no longer be used, i.e. the efforts of reviving "the spirit of ". The "Mottainai Spirit" is seen as human resources and nature surrounding us. In that context, Hitoshi Chiba, the author, described as follows:

We often hear in Japan the expression 'mottainai', which loosely means 'wasteful' but in its full sense conveys a feeling of awe and appreciation for the gifts of nature or the sincere conduct of other people. There is a trait among Japanese people to try to use something for its entire effective life or continue to use it by repairing it. In this caring culture, people will endeavor to find new homes for possessions they no longer need. The 'mottainai' principle extends to the dinner table, where many consider it rude to leave even a single grain of rice in the bowl. The concern is that this traditional trait may be lost.

In a 2014 paper on an apparent increase in interest in the idea of in early 21st-century Japan, historian Eiko Maruko Siniawer summarized the views of several Japanese writers who claimed that was a specifically Buddhist concept.Template:Sfnm She also cited a number of views of Japanese authors who believed that it was a uniquely Japanese "contribution to the world", whose views she characterized as mostly being "deeply rooted in cultural generalizations, essentialisms, and disdainful comparisons between countries".Template:Sfnm

Use by Wangari Maathai

File:Wangari Maathai in 2001.jpg

Nobel Prize winner Wangari Maathai has used the word in an environmental protection campaign.

At a session of the United Nations, Kenyan environmentalist Wangari Maathai introduced the word as a slogan for environmental protection. According to Mizue Sasaki,

Dr. Maathai, brandishing a t-shirt emblazoned with the word MOTTAINAI, explained that the meaning of the term encompasses the four Rs of reduce, reuse, recycle and repair ... [and] made the case that we should all use limited resources effectively and share them fairly if we are to avert wars arising from disputes over natural resources.

At the 2009 United Nations Summit on Climate Change, she said, "Even at personal level, we can all reduce, re-use and recycle, what is embraced as Mottainai in Japan, a concept that also calls us to express gratitude, to respect and to avoid wastage."

See also

• Affluenza
• Anti-consumerism
• Bal tashchit
• Conspicuous consumption
• Freeganism
• Frugality
• Mottainai Grandma
• "Mottai Night Land", a Kyary Pamyu Pamyu song
• Muda, mura and muri, three types of waste in lean manufacturing
• Planned obsolescence
• Simple living

References

Works cited

• Siniawer, Eiko Maruko (2014). ""Affluence of the Heart": Wastefulness and the Search for Meaning in Millenial Japan". The Journal of Asian Studies. 73 (1): 165 – via perusall.

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