Yukio Hatoyama and his wife Miyuki. Japan's next prime minister, Yukio Hatoyama, likes to wash dishes, enjoys animal movies and is secretly addicted¹ to shrimp² crackers³, according to his wife Miyuki, a newspaper said on Monday.

Japan's next prime minister, Yukio Hatoyama, likes to wash dishes, enjoys animal movies and is secretly addicted to shrimp crackers, according to his wife Miyuki, a newspaper said on Monday.

Hatoyama, who heads the Democratic Party of Japan, which won a landslide⁴ victory in parliamentary elections on Sunday, is "a natural person," Miyuki told the local newspaper.

"Hatoyama is often described as an 'alien,' but he is truly an ordinary person, a natural person," she was quoted as saying.

"He shows love without restraint, and in that sense he may appear to be an alien because he is unlike a Japanese," she added. Hatoyama has been nicknamed 'the alien' by his party in a gentle stab at his physical appearance.

The scion⁵ of a powerful political dynasty and one of Japan's richest lawmakers, the 62-year-old Stanford-trained engineer generally appears straight-faced in public, with a few exceptional smiles after Sunday's vote.

Miyuki painted a warm picture of her husband in private.

"I like to cook, but he goes to the kitchen after breakfast and dinner saying, 'I feel bad letting you do the dishes after having you cook'," Miyuki, a former actress-turned-lifestyle-guru told the paper.

Miyuki said the couple never discussed politics at home and that, instead, she gave him foot rubs after a hard day's campaigning.

"On holidays, we go to the supermarket together and he appears to have fun pushing the cart around. He likes shrimp crackers, but knowing that I will scold him, he secretly slips a couple of bags into the cart," she said.

Among his other hobbies, Hatoyama enjoys watching movies in which the protagonists⁶ are animals or have sweet plots such as Hayao Miyazaki's animation⁷ classic "Princess Mononoke," she said.

"I am a fan of action movies, and he tells me, 'Why do you like such violent movies?' But he still watches them with me," she added.

据日本一家报纸本周一报道，据日本下任首相夫人鸠山幸透露，鸠山由纪夫爱洗碗、爱看动物电影，还有个秘密的爱好——爱吃虾片。

鸠山幸在接受该报的采访时称，鸠山由纪夫是一个很“随和的人”。鸠山所领导的日本民主党在上周日的议会选举中获得压倒性胜利。

该报援引她的话说：“鸠山常被形容成‘外星人’，但他真的是一个普通、随和的人。”

她说：“他总是毫无保留地表达自己的爱，从这一点来看，他确实有点像外星人，因为这不像是日本人的做法。”由于外表看上去有些冷漠，他所领导的政党给他起了个绰号叫“外星人”。

鸠山由纪夫在公共场合露面时表情总是很严肃，但在上周日的大选后他却“破例”笑了几次。现年62岁的鸠山出身于一个显赫的政治世家，是日本最富有的立法人士之一。他曾在斯坦福大学留学，是一名工程师。

鸠山幸描绘了丈夫在家庭生活中的一些温馨画面。

她在接受报纸采访时说：“我喜欢做饭，但吃完早饭和晚饭后，他会去厨房洗碗，还说‘让你做完饭又刷碗我觉得过意不去”。鸠山幸曾是一名演员，现为一名时尚大师。

鸠山幸称，她和鸠山在家从不谈论政治，但在一天劳碌的竞选活动之后，她会为丈夫按摩脚。

她说：“放假时，我们会一起去超市，他似乎很喜欢推着购物车四处逛。他爱吃虾片，但知道我会说他，所以总是偷偷地往车里放几袋。”

此外，鸠山还爱看以动物为主角的电影，或者剧情美好的影片，例如宫崎骏的经典动画片《幽灵公主》。

鸠山幸说：“我爱看动作片，可他说我，‘为什么你喜欢看这些暴力的电影？但他还是会和我一起看。”

Vocabulary:

scion: a descendant or heir（子孙，后代）

straight-faced：板着脸，面无表情

guru：a leader in a particular field（头面人物，专家，权威）

protagonist：the leading character, hero, or heroine of a drama or other literary work（主角）