• ⇤
• ⇽
• ≡
• ⇾
• ⇥

drunken minister

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-seven years and one million words

Below is a video of a press conference held by a minister in the Japanese government. Although this is current affairs, this has kept me chuckling for so long now I'm putting it in my journal. Even if you don't speak the language, see if you can guess how thsi Japanese minister lost his job over this press conference, held in Rome during a big pow-wow.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CdyJrZonX_A

When he plaintively asks, "doko?" he's asking, in the very perfunctory way that a 20-something might ask a friend on his cellphone (and certainly not in appropriate terms for a finance minister) where the speaker is standing! Yup, the finance minister. Maybe he's got a bit too much on his mind?

For funny commentary on this, see an Englishman in Osaka.