On my way to work yesterday morning while walking through the train station, I had a chance to meet my congressman, Yasutoshi Nishimura. With the parliament on the verge of dissolution, all the politicians that might be on the chopping block are out in force, and this guy came all the way back from Tokyo to work for votes in front of the ticket gates at Okubo station. <\/p>\n
Kuniko and I always goof on the guy because of one of his new campaign posters. The poster has him posed in front of the local fish market in Akashi, surrounded by “regular people” that are all smiling and supportive. The funny part of the poster is that it is clear that he has struck a generic pose, the picture of the fish market is photoshopped in as well as the people, who are slightly different sized and have different lighting and shadows on them. I imagine that he has made similar posters for all the areas where he is looking for votes, and to me and Kuniko it seems like a cheesy effort. The posters are all over town, and so everywhere we go we are reminded of the poor photoshop skills this guy has.<\/p>\n
Anyway, so as I walked to work he was there in the flesh, saying good morning to people commuting to work, and bowing and generally being very polite. Nobody stopped to talk to him, nobody was shaking hands (probably because it was so cold) and nobody was debating foreign policy with him. People just wanted to go to work. I recognized him immediately, and made sure that I walked right in front of him on the way into the gates. He looked up and noticed I was a foreigner, and he froze.<\/p>\n
I can understand why he froze up. First, he was probably wondering what language he should use to greet me – would I understand a Japanese “good morning”? Is it better to take a chance with English? But what if I’m German or something? Actually, I go through this same mental calculation when I meet Japanese people that may or may not speak English – what would be the best way to show you are friendly without offending? But also he had to be thinking that as foreigner I can’t vote in Japan, so does it really matter?<\/p>\n
So all of this happened in a split second – he’s frozen and gulping and in that moment I give him a big smile and say “Good morning!” in English, and he smiled back and said “Good morning” right back. I debated briefly discussing his crappy poster design but thought it was not the right time, so I quit while I was ahead and moved through the gates. <\/p>\n
Kuniko and I had a laugh about it that evening over dinner – it was fun to finally meet the guy. I hope his governing skills are better than his design skills.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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