OBAMA, Japan (AP) - Barack Obama has never been to this port town on Japan's snowy west coast, and residents only know him from news reports about his faraway campaign for the U.S. presidency. But none of that matters much around here. Obama the Town is nuts about Obama the Man.
Obama's name graces posters hung up in the main hotel; headbands and T-shirts are planned with drawings of the candidate's face. Local confectioners are designing Japanese-style sweet bean cakes decorated with Obama's portrait.
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As fanciful as it may seem, leaders in Obama a name that means Little Beach in Japanese are serious about forging a relationship with the candidate.
The mayor, Toshio Murakami, sent Obama a letter a year ago with a gift of lacquerware chopsticks and a DVD and guidebook introducing the city, but no one knows if the package arrived as they never heard back from the U.S. senator.
The town 250 miles (400 kilometers) west of Tokyo is undaunted. Murakami plans to send Obama another care-package, this one with a fist-sized lacquerware good-luck daruma doll with the word "victory" written across the chest in Japanese calligraphy.
We want to ask him to stop by Obama as president if he visits Japan, said Sadakazu Tsubouchi, an official at city hall. Obama already has followings in other countries. His late father was Kenyan, and his last visit there in 2006 attracted thousands. He also has ties to Indonesia, where he lived with his mother and stepfather as a young boy.
Like many towns in Japan's financially challenged countryside, Obama is eager to distinguish itself. The town is known for lacquerware and China-influenced architecture, but it's far from being a top tourist destination. People in the town of 32,000 say that an Obama presidency could enhance the city's profile far beyond Japanese borders.
It would boost our city's name recognition, and that can lead to a boost in tourism,» said Murakami, though he denied the campaign was related entirely to commercialism. I really want him to win. I can relate to his policies on foreign affairs and environmental issues.
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Sanae Doi, a 40-year-old housewife at the local mall on Thursday, said she'd never heard of Barack Obama until just two weeks before the Super Tuesday primaries on Feb. 5. Since then, a lot of my friends and I have been talking about Obama, how his name is the same as the place we live, she said. If he becomes popular, I'm hoping this whole region will get recognition.
http://www.pr-inside.com/obama-gets-unlikely-boost-from-japanese-r438096.htm
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