Source: WeChat public account "Jing said Japan" Author: Xu Jingbo, president of the Asia News Agency
When Ms. Akie married Abe, her father was the president of The Famous Japanese Food Company, Morinoku Koku.
Prime Minister Abe resigned and left office, and Mrs. Akie did not show her face or send a tweet, which made the Japanese people feel strange.
As a result, Suga became the new prime minister of Japan, and people immediately thought: Who is his wife? Will it be the same as Lady Shōe?
Japan rarely says "first lady", after all, there is still a queen there. However, as the prime minister's wife, she must accompany her husband not only to participate in major activities at home and abroad, but also to accompany her husband on overseas visits, which is not only the face of the prime minister, but also the face of Japan.
But the queen is easy to choose, and the prime minister's wife is difficult to choose. Because the royal family chooses concubines, the conditions themselves are harsh, non-outstanding women, and it is difficult to enter the eyes of the law. In addition to some political families who choose daughters-in-law and have the conditions to pick and choose, most politicians are still grassroots when they get married, and the wives they choose are also chaff, but they did not expect that one day, they would become prime ministers, and the wife of the chaff would become The "first lady" of Japan.
Suga and his wife are such a typical example.
Graduated from high school at the age of 18, because he did not want to be a farmer at home, Suga Yoshihide from his hometown in Akita Prefecture, to the northeast, took a night train to Tokyo to break in, worked in a cardboard box factory, went to the Tsukiji Fish Market cart in the early morning, had some tuition fees, applied for the night department of Hosei University, studied while working, worked and studied after graduation, after graduation in a small mechanical and electrical company as a wiring worker, a chance, under the recommendation of the school teacher, was favored by the house of representative Kogi Yanzaburo Kojimasaburo, became the secretary of the parliament, One foot stepped into Japanese politics.
Yoshihide Suga (top left) while studying at Hosei University.
Because he was born in a cold door and had a low-key nature, even if Suga became the secretary of the congressman, he had no suitable partner, and it was not only himself who was anxious, but also Mr. Kogi.
At that time, in Mr. Kojiki's office, there was a female clerk who had an older sister named "Mariko", a native of Shizuoka Prefecture, who would occasionally come to the office to see her sister. When she first met Suga, Mariko's impression was this: "Really a very humble person, personally short, always silently busy with this and that, rarely speaking, leaving no deep impression." ”
This is a passage that Mariko said later when she talked to her friend about her husband.
Shizuoka Prefecture, the hometown of the Edo period general Tokugawa Ieyasu, is bordered by the Pacific Ocean and is home to a large seafood scene. It is also a hilly area and is a famous tea producing area in Japan. It is a friendly sister province and county with Zhejiang Province, and the characteristics of the two places are very similar.
In the 1960s and 1970s, Akita Prefecture, in the eyes of the people of Shizuoka Prefecture, was a poor and remote place, with heavy snow in winter as thick as 3 or 4 meters, no Shinkansen trains, and a two-day and two-night train to return home, in addition to the abundant rice, you can't eat fresh fish all year round. Therefore, young people can't find jobs in the local area, so they have come to Tokyo to work as migrant workers.
Mariko was a nurse at a hospital in Yokohama City at the time, and it was unanimously accepted that Mariko looked a lot like movie star Naomi Yasuda.
Narumi Yasuda
Suga saw the truth for the first time and was dumbfounded for a while. He later told someone: "The first time I met Mariko, I found that she spoke softly, was very cultured, and her skin was very white, and she belonged to the Yamato woman I liked, and naturally fell in love at first sight." ”
After all, it is a rural child who meets a lady in the city, and Suga Yoshihide's heart loves to roll, but he still dares not open his mouth. However, Councilor Kojiki saw the clue, lit the Mandarin Duck Spectrum, and became a matchmaker for the two people, so when Suga Yoshihide was 28 years old and Mariko was 25 years old, the two of them held a wedding ceremony under the auspices of Senator Kojiki.
Mrs. Suga's personality is different from that of Mrs. Abe, she is a very showy and introverted person who does not like to show her face.
When he got married, Suga was just a secretary, and he didn't think about becoming a parliamentarian. And Mariko hates the lives of the families of parliamentarians who go around pulling votes from the docks. Therefore, when getting married, Lady Mariko made a request: "My task is to take care of this family." Suga's promise to his wife was: "Political matters will not require you to participate." ”
However, a few years after their marriage, Suga resigned as secretary at the suggestion of senator Kosaki and ran for the Yokohama City Council, and Mariko was forced to go to Liangshan.
When Suga was elected to the Yokohama City Council, Lady Mariko (bottom right) accompanied him in celebrating.
Every time there is a supporter gathering, people always can't find the shadow of Mariko in the venue, she is always outside the venue, receiving every supporter, if someone asks "Where is the toilet?" "Whether it's a man or a woman, she will definitely accompany her to the toilet door." After the meeting, he stood at the door and shook hands with each supporter and bowed deeply: "Please support Suga more."
Lady Mariko is not only humble, but also has a low-key and simple life, people have never seen her carrying a world-famous bag, nor have they seen her wearing a dress, wearing jewelry that is always just a pearl necklace, and usually rarely wears makeup. In Japanese, it belongs to the "地味で礼儀正しい、あか抜けた格好は全くしない方" (is a very simple and polite person who does not like to dress up).
Not long after their marriage, Suga became a yokohama city councilor, and the two had three sons, and the husband and wife were able to take care of each other at that time.
In 1996, Suga was elected to the House of Representatives, and the center of his life was moved from Yokohama to Tokyo, and although it was only an hour's train ride, the hard-working Suga was busy with politics every day, living most of the time in the parliamentarian dormitory in Akasaka, Tokyo, and rarely returning to his home in Yokohama.
Mariko is a person who has brought up 3 children, and if the husband is physically unwilling, he will immediately give the child to his sister to take care of, and run to Tokyo to take care of her husband, which is a typical good wife and mother.
Mrs. Mariko
Therefore, many people in Japanese politics say that Suga was able to concentrate on the work of parliamentarians and sit on the throne of today's prime minister, all because of his wife's "internal help."
However, just over half a month ago, Prime Minister Abe suddenly resigned due to illness, and the news came out of Japanese society that Suga Yoshihide was running for president and prime minister of the Liberal Democratic Party, and Mrs. Mariko said a word to the cadres of the Suga Yoshihide Support Association: "If Suga Yoshihide wants to run, I will divorce him immediately." ”
As Chief Cabinet Secretary for nearly 8 years, Suga guarded the Prime Minister's residence every day, rarely had the opportunity to return to his home in Yokohama City, and his three sons rarely saw their father several times a year. If Suga really became the prime minister, it would be mariko to appear, and Mariko was unwilling to do the work of the "first lady", so there was a "divorce theory".
But no matter what, her husband became the prime minister of Japan, and on the day of her election, when the supporters presented flowers to Mariko in the Yokohama office, she was really a little crying: "What can I do?" She said this three times in a row.
It was not only Lady Mariko who was confused, but also Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga himself.
In an interview with the media, the congressman who was close to Suga said the following paragraph: Suga famously said, "Being a politician is a personal matter in the end, and it has nothing to do with his family." Hereditary politicians are not good. ”
Because of this concept, Suga rarely took his wife to participate in activities, nor did he let his sons take over his own shift, and 3 children worked in the company, one of whom was an employee of Mitsui & Co., Ltd.
In the past few decades, after grassroots parliamentarians became prime ministers, because the wife of the chaff could not appear, the "first lady" seat was replaced by the daughter, and there were two. One was Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka, who had restored the normalization of Sino-Japanese diplomatic relations in the early 1970s, and Kakuei Tanaka from the countryside of Niigata Prefecture, adjacent to Akita Prefecture, whose wife really did not understand politics, asked her daughter Makiko to take the role of "first lady" and accompany Tanaka on a trip to various countries to receive overseas guests. The other is Tomiichi Murayama, who became prime minister in the mid-1990s, from a fisherman's family and also invited his daughter to accompany him.
Suga Yoshihide has no daughter and can't always invite his daughter-in-law to appear, so Mrs. Mariko not only can't put the divorce on the table, but also has to drive the ducks to the shelves.
People who have seen Lady Mariko say that the affinity of Lady Mariko is the best weapon. Just dress up and keep smiling, you can calm those Western visitors.