Newsmaker

Shades of Hillary seen in Nobuko

(China Daily)
Updated: 2010-06-05 07:12

Kan calls his wife Nobuko his political "opposition in the home", and when he took office Friday she immediately rejected the title of first lady.

"I always thought the term 'first lady' isn't suitable in Japan," the well-known straight talker said in a phone interview with TV Asahi after Kan became the new leader of the ruling Democratic Party of Japan.

"It refers to the wife of a US president," she said. "I will do what I can as his wife, but I'd also like to keep my own freedom."

Despite her rare public appearances compared to her outgoing predecessor Miyuki Hatoyama, the 64-year-old housewife, a skilled speaker on the campaign trail, was once likened to Hillary Clinton, now the US secretary of state.

Nobuko has been with Kan since he was a leftist civic activist in the 1970s and gained his first parliamentary seat in 1980 after three failed attempts. Over the years she is known to have pulled strings in his political career.

She has also admitted that her own occasional domestic tirades may have inspired some of the parliamentary outbursts of her husband.

"When Kan was still opposition, he would often blast away at ruling party politicians during parliament sessions," she said. "Watching those scenes on television, I'd think to myself: 'that's what I do to him at home'."

Their marriage went through a rough patch when a gossip magazine revealed he had spent a night in a hotel room with a television presenter.

She harshly criticized her husband, mostly for dropping his guard and imperiling his political career, but eventually let the matter go.

Kan later told the media: "My wife scolded me: 'You idiot!'"