Japan`s First Lady

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Japan’s First Lady
(NBC News 2009)
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032619/vp/33933735#33933735
For Japan’s media, politics have suddenly become a lot more interesting thanks to the country’s new First
Lady. She’s made headlines with tales of alien encounters and past lives.
Here’s NBC’s Ian Williams.
Japan has never had a First Lady quite like Myuki Hatiyama: she’s a world apart – or perhaps even on the next
planet!
She’s very confident, you know, “This is me, accept me for who I am. This is what I do and, you know, if you
don’t, take it or leave it!”
In a recent interview, she showed how she eats the sun to gain energy. She described how she’d met Tom Cruise
in a past life. He was Japanese back then, she says. Perhaps a flashback to his movie role as a Sumurai knight.
And she said her spirit had flown by UFO to Venus, which she called a beautiful place.
Most Japanese seem remarkedly unphased by the cosmic adventures of their new First Lady. Instead, she’s widely
seen here as a breath of fresh air.
She’s a straight-shooter and I really like her.
I really admire her for having her own opinions.
The First Lady’s used to being center stage. She’s a former actress and singer with the all female
Takarasuka Review. The self-proclaimed life-star guru, she met Mr.Hatiyama when he was studying engineering
at Standford and she was working in her first husband’s restaurant. Now Japan has a first couple whose public
displays of affection are as alien here as Venus.
In Japan, it’s you know, the man is the man, the lady’s the lady: “walk five steps behind me,” and here we have
the Prime Minister and the First Lady showing that to everybody: “yes, it’s OK to appreciate your wife, you know,
and help your husband.
NTV television took these pictures of the First Couple thumb-wrestling on their official plane. She’s transformed
her husband’s previously humdrum image.
She does his hair and chooses his necktie and what he’s gonna wear, and that’s how they start their day.
And wherever her inter-planetary travels may take her, she’s certainly bringing a touch of color to Japan’s political
catwalk.
Ian Williams, NBC News, Tokyo.
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Vocabulary
01. She’s made the headlines
Elle a defrayé la chronique
02. tales of alien encounters
des histoires de rencontres avec des extraterrestres
03. she’s a world apart
elle est très differente
04. back then
à cette époque
05. UFO (Unidentified Flying Object)
un OVNI
06. remarkedly unphased
étonnement imperturbé
07. instead
plutôt (dans le context)
08. a breath of fresh air
une bouffée d’air frais
09. She’s a straight shooter
Elle a un franc-parler
10. to be used to being center stage
être habitué à être sous les projecteurs
11. displays of affection
manifestations d’affection
12. alien
étrange, non-coutumier
13. to thumb-wrestle
faire une partie de « pousses de fer » (bras de fer
avec les pousses)
14. a humdrum image
une image monotone
15. what he’s gonna wear
= going to wear
16. the political catwalk
le “podium” de femmes/d’hommes politiques