Tsurunen Marutei

From TheBestLinks.com

Tsurunen Marutei (ツルネンマルテイ or 弦念丸呈, born April 30, 1940) is the first foreign-born Japanese member of the Diet of Japan. He is a member of the Democratic Party of Japan, where he serves as Director General of the International Department.

He was born Martti Turunen in Karelia, Finland. At the age of 27, he traveled to Japan as a missionary of the Lutheran Church. It was not until he met his future wife, Sachiko, in 1974 that he became enamored with the country and decided to become Japanese, gaining his citizenship in 1979 and taking on a Japanese language version of his Finnish language name. Over the next decade, Tsurunen completed the first Finnish translations of the Tale of Genji and several other Japanese books while teaching English in Kanagawa prefecture.

In 1992, he ran for the town assembly in Yugawara and was elected: he subsequently wrote a popular book called Here Comes a Blue-Eyed Assemblyman. He served on the Yugawara assembly until 1995, when he made his first bid for the House of Councillors and lost. Four unsuccessful campaigns later, and after writing another book called I Want to Be Japanese, Tsurunen finally entered the House of Councillors in 2002, after the resignation of Ohashi Kyosen.

He has two children: a daughter age 26, and a son age 22.