Bearing the unbearable without complaint. Central Japanese virtue — and a contested one.

What a Japanese person actually thinks
Respected, with a shadow. Older readers see a virtue; younger ones may see the thing they're trying to unlearn. Either way it reads as culturally serious rather than decorative.

Meaning

Literally: self + arrogance
Actually: Enduring something difficult with patience and dignity. Deeply valued — it's what people praised each other for after the 2011 earthquake — but there's also a live critique that excessive gaman is how Japan produces burnout and untreated depression.

Scores

Naturalness●●●●●

Extremely common word.

Coolness●●●●●

Two clean characters and a genuinely load-bearing cultural concept. The ambivalence around it is interesting rather than disqualifying.

Watch out

lowThe etymology is Buddhist and originally negative — 我慢 meant self-centred pride. The endurance meaning is a later development.

On skin

我慢

Orientation: either

Mincho or brush.