Japanese prime minister Sanae Takaichi says she was shocked when she encountered a cockroach at home, then found herself unexpectedly “lonely” when it was gone.
The 65-year-old world leader narrated her encounter with the pest in the prime minister’s official residence in Tokyo while answering “some of the questions I often get” in an anecdotal X post shared Saturday, Aug. 22, originally written in Japanese.
One of the questions Takaichi, who is known for her active presence on social media, answered is, “Have you already met the ghosts that are said to appear in the official residence?”
The question is rooted in legends that the Tokyo mansion is haunted by those who di£d during two coup attempts in the ‘30s, shortly after the home was built.
Takaichi’s responded that she has not seen any spirits in the halls of the residence. However, shd said she had seen a cockroach.
“I’ve never encountered a ghost, but until recently, I was the one screaming when I came across cockroaches,” the Japanese prime minister wrote on X before detailing the impact the encounter had on her.
“When I lived in the members’ dormitory, I never had an encounter with cockroaches,” she wrote in the lengthy post.
“Even after moving to the official residence, I carefully wiped down the floor under the dining table, put food scraps in a sturdy lidded garbage can, and washed and sorted plastic containers, so I was shocked when, one day, a cockroach suddenly scurried past my feet.”
Takaichi could not deal with the insect herself, she said, citing her love for Osamu Tezuka’s Phoenix manga, a childhood favorite with themes of reincarnation.
“Maybe because of that, even now as an adult, I can’t bring myself to kill insects, cockroaches included,” she wrote.
“Maybe this life is also part of that long cycle of reincarnation,” she recalled thinking of the cockroach she spotted in the halls of the Tokyo residence.
So she said she left the insect to roam the home for a while — until one of the members of her staff learned of its existence.
“For a while, I endured it, hoping it would somehow leave on its own—but when I told my secretaries about it, they were appalled,” Takaichi wrote. “‘It’s unclean. I’ll handle it,’ one of the secretaries said firmly, and arranged for Operation Combat.”
The prime minister did not spot any more cockroaches in the residence after her staff took action, but she concluded her post by admitting that along with relief, she felt a bit sad about the situation.
Takaichi wrote: “I felt relieved, but also a little lonely, or maybe sad…”
Saturday’s cockroach anecdote came after Takaichi explained in a different X post that she has been working more from the prime minister’s home next to her office rather than the office itself.