Obama vs Obama

Well, the election is finally over. As usual, the task of explaining how the Electoral College works to the Japanese staff of J-List is similar to teaching someone the rules of American football -- in other words, very difficult -- although the local Japanese news helps out by going over the basics of the system. As has been widely reported, there's a city in Fukui Prefecture on the Sea of Japan with the name of Obama (written with kanji meaning "small beach"), but the coincidence is even more amazing due to the fact that the word for "city" and the suffix used to refer to individuals in formal situations like news reporting is both shi -- hence, the official name of Obama City is Obama-shi, and the most common way for a newspaper article or news reporter on TV to refer to Mr. Obama would be Barakku Obama-shi. The connection between the place and the man began when the Senator made a visit to Japan in 2006 and happened to encounter a customs inspector from the city who told him of the name match-up, and when Mr. Obama announced his candidacy the city designated themselves his unofficial supporters in Japan. Tomo recently got married to a girl from Fukui, and he reports that she's happy at having an American President with the name of "her" city. In a further coincidence, the city of Obama happens to be where two of the 16 Japanese who were abducted to North Korea and forced to teach Japanese to spies were from. The Japanese aren't too pleased with the recent decision by the U.S. State Department to remove North Korea from its list of official terrorist states, and some here hope that Mr. Obama's having the same name as one of the abduction sites will raise some awareness of this issue in the American government.