English-Club-ET2

A Sense of a Housewife in Makiko's Style

     Mrs. Makiko Tanaka is a thoughtless Foreign Minister. If a previous executive of the Ministry of
Foreign Affairs were not arrested on a charge of embezzlement of secret funds, she would not
have been appointed to the position. People&rsquos hopes of her are high, because she is expected to
redress the injustice of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and its government officials. However, her
recent words and deeds have begun to disappoint them. Her thoughtless attitude has been
producing friction between her and the officials of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
     When Makiko Tanaka, the Foreign Minister, made an official call on Beijing at the end of last
May, she was going to stay at a hotel that she selected herself and had confirmed the room by
looking at its pictures. However, she suddenly cancelled the hotel on the grounds that it was too
expensive. As the hotel charges were 288,000 yen a night, she changed to another room that cost
90,000 yen. She emphasized that she put up at another cheaper hotel in a press conference. Her
intention of saving expenses might have been a kind of performance to reprove the public officials
of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for their waste. To see it from a different angle, she might have
played to the grandstands in order to win popularity. To see her in a favorable light conversely,
she might have shown the sense of &ldquoa housewife&rdquo. During her election campaign, she had often
stressed that she was a housewife like general women. Taking things simply, she might have thought
&ldquoas a housewife&rdquo that the charges for the hotel were too expensive in her account book.
     However, the situation developed unexpectedly. Mrs. Tanaka ordered her subordinates to
change the hotel, but they were unable to succeed in canceling the hotel because it was too late.
In fact, she stayed at the cheaper hotel without knowing the fact. As a result, she was charged
about 290,000 yen because of the cancellation. According to the Asahi on June 5, 2001, two chiefs
who accompanied Mrs. Tanaka would pay the charges because it was impossible to apply tax for
this kind of loss. However, you should not be surprised at her words and deeds so far. In fact, she
paid 290,000 yen from her pocket money. Could an ordinary housewife easily pay such a lot of
money? The writer feels utterly scandalized at her remarks that she was a housewife like general
women. Although she still often says that she has only twenty or thirty thousand yen in her purse,
you will be surprised at her large amount of property. Her total property was officially announced
to be worth about seven hundred million-yen last month. Probably, its market price would be several
times as much as the official announced amount of money.
     It would be almost meaningless even if such a wealthy &ldquohousewife&rdquo had changed a hotel whose
hotel charges were 290,000 yen to a cheaper hotel that charged 90,000 yen on account of saving
money. Even 90-thousand-yen is expensive enough for the general public to stay at a hotel overnight.
Mrs. Tanaka should have stayed at a hotel the charges of which were less than 10,000 yen if she
had had the will to save money seriously.
     In conclusion, her real intention to have changed the hotel is still unclear. Her decision was
extremely abrupt, and she lacked consideration for her staff. Although she might have intended to
show the sense of a housewife by changing hotels so as to save money, she had to waste money.
She cared about trifles too far, and forgot a weighty thing. This thoughtless word and deed of hers
might be the sense of a housewife in Tanaka&rsquos style.