対岸の火事

How do people use 対岸の火事?

Everyday, and especially common in news and opinion pieces. It’s used much more often in the negative, as a warning: “対岸の火事ではない” (this is no fire across the river), meaning a problem elsewhere could easily reach us. In the positive it can sound callous, as in “対岸の火事で良かった” (lucky it was someone else’s fire).

Also said 対岸の火災

対岸の火事 in real sentences

• 対岸の火事で良かった。

  Taigan no kaji de yokatta.

  I am glad it was someone else who got it.

  Tatoeba, sentence by bunbuku, translation by CK, CC BY 2.0 FR

Where does 対岸の火事 come from?

Daijisen and Japanese Wiktionary explain the picture the same way: a fire is a disaster, but one burning across the river can’t spread to your side. English Wiktionary compares it with the Chinese idiom 隔岸觀火 (watching a fire from across the river), without saying the Japanese came from it. Japanese Wiktionary quotes it from Kobayashi Takiji’s story Kōjō Saibō, but I found no record of its first use.

Mistakes learners make with 対岸の火事

Using it for anything that’s simply far away. The point is that the trouble can’t spread to you, so a distant crisis that could still reach you is exactly what people call “対岸の火事ではない”, no fire on the other bank.

Other Japanese idioms like 対岸の火事

• 川向こうの火事 (kawamukō no kaji: a fire across the river)
• 他人事 (hitogoto: someone else’s business)
• 余所事 (yosogoto: an outside matter)