Japanese傍若無人 (Bōjaku-bujin)
Meaning: Behaving without regard for others' feelings or presence around you.
Literally: Act as if no people beside
Example: “電車で大声で電話するなんて傍若無人だ。” — Shouting into your phone on the train is acting like you own the place.
English equivalent: To act like one owns the place
Equivalents in other languages
English: act like one owns the place
Origin: Comes from the "Biographies of Assassins" chapter of Sima Qian's Records of the Grand Historian (Shiji), describing Jing Ke, the assassin later famous for his failed attempt on the life of the First Emperor of Qin. Before that mission, Jing Ke spent his days drinking, singing, and carrying on loudly with his friend Gao Jianli, a skilled player of the zhu (a plucked string instrument) — behaving, in the historian's own words, "as if there were no one else present" (傍若無人), utterly unconcerned with how his conduct appeared to anyone around him. The phrase kept that exact sense once it entered Japanese: acting entirely on one's own impulses, with no regard whatsoever for the people nearby who might be affected or bothered by it.
More Japanese idioms
- 四面楚歌 (Shimensoka) Being surrounded by enemies with no hope of escape or support.
- 鯖を読む (Saba o yomu) To fudge the numbers in your favor, especially your age.
- 油を売る (Abura ouru) To slack off or dawdle when you should be working.
- 高嶺の花 (Takane no hana) Someone or something beautiful but utterly out of reach.
- 猫の額 (Neko no hitai) A very small space, especially of land.
- 腹が黒い (hara ga kuroi) Scheming and malicious behind a friendly face.
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