'Is it because the truth is so boring," asked the 14th-century monk Yoshida no Kenko in a classic collection of musings known as the "The Grasses of Idleness," "that most stories one hears are false?"
Boring, unbearable or merely inconvenient? A nuisance, however you look at it, best avoided whenever avoidable, and hoary old Kenko is cited here as evidence of how little has changed in 700 years.
We live in scandalous times. The major scandals currently swirling blacken a broad swath of corporate Japan: Mitsubishi Motors Corp.'s falsification of fuel efficiency data; Toa Corp.'s substandard earthquake-proofing of airport runways; Toyo Tire & Rubber Co.'s substandard earthquake-proofing of buildings; Takata Corp.'s substandard automobile air bags; Toshiba Corp.'s falsified accounting; and so on.