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Tsurunen Marutei (ツルネン マルテイ or 弦念 丸呈, b.
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.
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