Word: japanize
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
With hair that sometimes reveals a shock of white, sometimes goes all black, Miyuki Hatoyama, 66, is striking enough in person. That she is visible at all is a surprise. In Japan, the wives of politicians are often neither seen nor heard. But Miyuki Hatoyama has become something of an international media phenomenon because of remarks in a book she once wrote - and, oh yes, because her husband, Yukio Hatoyama, 62, is assuming the office of Prime Minister after what many are calling one of the most important elections in post-war Japanese history...
After his Democratic Party of Japan displaced the Liberal Democrats from more than half-a-century in power, her words in a 2008 book entitled Most Bizarre Things I've Encountered made it around the world and momentarily overshadowed his victory. In the book, she claimed that in her sleep aliens took her soul to the planet Venus, which she described as being very green. The headlines around the world were shocked, shocked, in a predictable way, with bad puns from London to New York, and even in neighboring South Korea, China and Taiwan. (See the top 10 colorful first...
...clearly devoted and has also said in interviews how much he is invigorated by being with her (allowing her, it is said, to style his hair, which, with its pompadour-like height, defies the slicked-down look Japanese politicians are used to sporting.) (See pictures of Japan from 1989 to today...
...quote got out.) And, in the afterglow of her husband's epoch-ending victory, there is talk about how her honesty and outspokenness are symbolic of what many hope will be a new, less constricting era. She certainly believes his ascension to power is a sign of change in Japan, one that she is happy to be a part of. "I think he will be a completely new style of leader..." she told Aera. "I think that the time has arrived and that his ideas are understood." (See pictures of a UFO congress...
...style and appearance, perhaps dressing him a little more conservatively dressed than before. She told the magazine that she won't make him wear what the Japanese call "cool biz," a casual summer look that she finds inappropriate for the role of Prime Minister. Nevertheless, when she becomes Japan's next first lady, she has said that nothing much else will change about how she goes about her life. "I'll take trains just like I used to." She may refrain, however, from mentioning any future voyages on UFOs...