Obama has Become a Japanese Verb
The Japanese seem to really like President Obama. This goes beyond last year’s song from Obama City in Fukui Prefecture (it’s easiest to think of prefectures as being like states). Japanese youths are now using the President’s name as the verb “obamu”, which means “To ignore inexpedient and inconvenient facts or realities, think ‘Yes we can, Yes we can,’ and proceed with optimism using those facts as an inspiration (literally, as fuel). It is used to elicit success in a personal endeavor. One explanation holds that it is the opposite of kobamu. (which means to refuse, reject, or oppose).”
George Stephanopoulos called it a new honor “not quite the Nobel Peace Prize, but… a bit more hip.” James Fallows of the Atlantic points out that “It will be a good sign for Obama if his name continues to be used in this mainly-positive context.”
So how are we doing in Afghanistan? On health care reform? On the economy? “Obande imasu!” (We’re proceeding with optimism, despite the situation).
7 Responses to “Obama has Become a Japanese Verb”
“To ignore inexpedient and inconvenient facts or realities, think ‘Yes we can, Yes we can,’ and proceed with optimism …”
I don't know if that definition of how it's being used is accurate or not, but I'm struggling to understand how that would be 'mostly positive'. You're the leader of the free world and you make decisions based on 'ignoring inexpedient and inconvenient facts and realities', using blinded optimism to proceed in spite of those realities, and that's supposed to be a good thing?
Well let's see… putting a man on the moon in the 60s? Ridiculous! Winning WWII? Ridiculous! Pulling the US out of the great depression? Ridiculous! Building a worldclass interstate highway system back in mid-century? Ridiculous! Here's the deal, if the naysayers hold sway, and the “yes we can” attitude (a non-partisan thing no?) is heckled out of the room, then seemingly insurmountable challenges will never be undertaken in the first place. What kind of wusses do we want to be?
J, I guess that's one way of looking at it but virtually all of the 'seemingly insurmountable challenges' you mention didn't require ignoring facts and realities…rather, they involved decisions to commit resources to solving the seemingly insurmountable challenges. About the only one that you mentioned that could fit the category would be the moon launch, since we really did lack the technological know how at the time that JFK issued the challenge- but that's still not exactly the same as ignoring facts, it was still about committing resources.
Today though, with many of the 'seemingly insurmountable challenges', those who chant 'yes we can' actually ARE in many cases ignoring facts and feeling that if they wish it hard enough, it will all work out.
Obama can continue on with his optimism “Yes We Can” rhetorical talk all he wants, but it doesn't mean anything unless some action is put behind it.
CS – Agreed, there are probably as many with unrealistic expectations as there are those who wish for failure. Neither is a productive attitude. I expect most of the TMV people are in that middle ground somewhere… or so I would hope. (whoops, there's that word again
Keith Olbermann already coined “Bushed” as a verb. “To Bush” means to transparently hornswaggle, or to bask in narcissitic glory as everything you touch turns to crap.
We could use “Cheney” to describe roughly “to be ruthlessly conned”. To Cheney: manipulating with forceful coercion to buy a rotten product.
Not a big fan of Bush and I couldn't stand Cheney.
But lets not forget what it means when we “Reaganed” the USSR, “Cartered the economy”, “Clintoned the deficit” (or Clintoned the intern – lol).
The Japanese term appears to have the “ostrich with his head in the sand” connotation to it. That isn't a good thing, as was stated above.