Obama Chopsticks
February 26th, 2009 by James
It is being reported that Taro Aso gave Barack Obama a pair of chopsticks crafted in the town of Obama:
The chopsticks were some of the gifts that Aso and Obama exchanged on the occasion of their first meeting at the White House. Aso also presented the U.S. president, who plays basketball well, a uniform with “OBAMA” on the back and the number 44 as he is the 44th president of the United States.
Aso presented Michelle, the first lady, with a board game featuring “sudoku,” which is one of her hobbies.
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Gosh, he’s the 44th? Does this mean that the more superstitious Japanese will expect him to have an untimely death?
What on earth is a “board game featuring “sudoku,””? I would suggest that there is no such thing, as I wonder if this was an erroneous translation of ゲーム, ge-mu, which almost always refers to electronic games – was it a DS with a sudoku cartridge or one of these sudoku-only devices?
And what a naff set of gifts – it’s a bit like the slightly bonkers aunt who gives you totally inappropriate Xmas presents.
(The chopsticks are nice, though)
I checked the Japanese sites, and I was wrong, it does seem it was a metal sudoku – something or other. My web searches don’t bring up anything definite, but I would suspect that it is something like a Scrabble board only with numbers instead of letters, and you place the tiles corresponding to the numbers in the book.
I wonder if a handful of sudoku books from Daiso would have been more welcome!
Contrary to popular belief, sudoku isn’t even Japanese. What’s Aso doing giving her sudoku? It’s Swiss or American depending on how far back. Another example of Japan thinking thinking they invented everything (>_<)
He gave it to her because she likes to play it. So what’s the problem?
It’s just a present.
Maybe he wasn’t even aware that Sudoku didn’t originate in Japan? And by the way, who cares, it became popular first in Japan and only because of the popularity there, people elsewhere started to get interested.
“Because it’s from Japan, so it must be hip and trendy!”