From: Sam Sloan <samsloan <at> samsloan <dot> com>
Date: 09 jul 2006
Subject: Re: Yoshiharu Habu vs. Junichiro Koizumi?


At 09:47 PM 7/8/2006 -0400, bogin wrote:
>While your post was informative and Yoshiharu Habu is indeed well known in
>Japan, your statement he is more popular and better known than the current
>Prime Minister of Japan is a little bit of a stretch don't you think?
>Perhaps yuo have not been here in a while and your information is a little
>dated. 
>
>The current Japanese Prime Minister, Junichiro Koizumi, has not only has
>led his party to the victories in the last 3 general elections, has
>amazingly high personal approval ratings and has been the longest serving
>Japanese Prime Minster for the past 20 years. His party's overwhelming
>victories are entirely do to his enormous popularity. Even the people who
>don't support will probably acknowledge that he is , for better or worse, a
>political, social and cultural phenom. 
>
>I like shogi and I am a big fan of Mr. Habu but if you were to show his
>picture to 100 people across Japan (people not in a shogi club at the time)
>you'd might be lucky to get 50 who knew who he was. But, if you were to
>show a picture of Prime Minister Koizumi to the same people you'd be
>unlucky to not get 95-100 people who kew who he was. 
>
>I have met plenty of Japanese people who do not know who Mr. Habu is. But,
>I have yet to have met one who doesn't know who Mr. Koizumi is. 
>
>Mr. Habu is a genius over the shogi board but I have never heard of him
>referred to as being the smartest person in Japan. And, I have been here
>for a while. I am interested in knowing where you got that information. 
>
>Bill Gaudry 


I forwarded your letter to a friend in Japan, and here is his reply:

Dear Sam,

I would say that Koizumi is a bit more well known than Habu, but not by
much. If Habu ran for election against Koizumi on a platform to  straigthen
out the Japanese economy by using his much vaunted intelligence, he would
probably be a more credible candidate than Koizumi.

Maybe if Habu concentrated on chess a bit more, he could become World
Champion.


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