Japanese Leader Visits Southland

Japanese Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi said he came to Los Angeles for a reunion with an old flame, and he kept his commitment Thursday in Long Beach.

Obuchi’s first stop after landing at Los Angeles International airport was the Queen Mary, the ship that first brought him to the United States more than 35 years ago. He said the ship was his “love in Los Angeles.”

“When he saw that room his eyes lit up and he went to sit on the bed. He said it brought back a lot of memories,” said Queen Mary President Joseph Prevatil, who guided Obuchi.

The prime minister had gone to the very stateroom he occupied when he left Japan as a young man, eager to see how the world works. Obuchi, now 63 and the Japanese head of state, returned to the ship during a trip to help see what he can do to make the world work better, now that he is in charge of a world power.

En route to Chicago and Washington for a summit with President Clinton, Obuchi spent his first hours in the United States reminiscing aboard the ship on which he sailed across the Atlantic as a graduate student. Obuchi boarded the ship in 1963 for a journey from Southampton, England, to New York.

After touring his old room, Obuchi held a brief private meeting on board with Long Beach Mayor Beverly O’Neill and Prevatil before moving quickly along on his one-day whirlwind tour through the Southland.

Obuchi had more public contact at his next stop, the Japanese American National Museum in Little Tokyo. The prime minister viewed exhibits in the museum, which he last visited as a legislator in 1996. Speaking to reporters in Japanese in the museum’s lobby, Obuchi said he was moved by the hardships overcome by Japanese Americans, and added that he was pleased to be in Los Angeles, because he believes it is the U.S. city with the strongest ties to Japan, through trade, tourism and its large Japanese American population.

Obuchi said he was impressed by Los Angeles’ diversity, especially the fact that many visitors to the museum he saw were not Japanese or Japanese American.

After his sightseeing stops, Obuchi was received by Mayor Richard Riordan, Los Angeles County Supervisor Don Knabe and other local officials at a garden reception at the Getty House, the mayor’s official residence in Hancock Park.

Knabe said Obuchi’s visit was especially important because “Japan’s economic health has a direct impact on the economic health of our community.”

In fact, Obuchi later talked about Japan’s international influence at a dinner in his honor attended by nearly 1,000 people at the Regent Beverly Wilshire Hotel in Beverly Hils.

“In the past,” Obuchi told the audience in his only speech of the day, “people said if the U.S. sneezes, Japan catches a cold. These days . . . people say if Japan catches a cold, Asia catches pneumonia.”

He added, “Despite its own sneeze, coughs and fever, Japan is diligently implementing assistance measures totaling over $80 billion, so that our Asian friends may not catch pneumonia.”

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According to the mayor’s office, Getty House, the official residence of the L.A. mayor, is located in Windsor Square, not Hancock Park.

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