Obama@Tokyo

The US president Barack Obama made a first visit to Japan last week. This visit attracted much attention among Japanese not only because this was the first visit since his inauguration, but also because many Japanese were impressed by his historical speech on abolishing nuclear weapons in Czech Republic.

In order to draw students' attention to the news on Obama's visit and what he would tell, in my English Study class I showed a video on his victory speech made in Chicago, which I think one of the most memorable ones (I believe learning occurs when it is provided at the right time).

I wasn't sure whether he would make a speech during this very short visit (he only stayed for 23 hours!), so when I knew he would do this, I was very relieved (now our viewing the speech in the last class has gained some meaning).

I only watched several speeches made by Obama, and I'm not a specialist in public speaking, so this is just my impression, but I've found a couple of similarities to the previous ones, or Obama speech structure from his Tokyo speech.

First, he usually attempts to make a good relationship with the audience at the beginning of the speech. In Czech he started by saying the history of the country, and showed his understanding of this to the people. This also provided the reason why he was there and why he told this. This time, he told his memory which he visited a Buddha temple in Kamakura and ate macha ice cream in his childhood. This episode surely reduced the distance between the speaker and the audience. In addition, the fact that he visited the "Buddha" temple seemed to convey an important message. Through this he implicitly showed his multi-religionism (which extends to his understanding of other religions, in particular Islam).

Linked to this, his speeches often include an impressive episode. The great example is Anne Nixon Cooper, in his victory speech, a 106 years old lady, who saw big changes in the last 100 years. This Tokyo speech didn't give many episodes but his childhood memory in Kamakura plays this role. Such an episode makes the speech closer the listener, providing a visible image.

What is more, his speech is often planned to include some surprise, which are often pleasing to the audience. In the Czech speech, this was, of course, his ambitious challenge of reducing nuclear weapons. This time, (not quite explicitly though), I think his clear words on Japanese abduction by North Korea. In this speech, he declared his basic attitude to this issue.

Probably, these characteristics are not attempted only by him but by many good public speakers. Or, they may be basic principles of good presentation in many how-to-make a good speech books. Even so, I don't know any other people who can make a speech in such a splendid and impressive way. Understanding how-tos is obviously the first step to successful doing, but there is still a big gap between what we know and what we can.