Embassy officials all over the world know the necessity of adapting to local cultures in order to grease the wheels of diplomacy. In Japan, this inevitably calls for round, furry monsters. Several foreign countries have recognized the value of creating cutesy characters to act as cultural ambassadors, representing their homelands at public events or in PR material. Many of these mascots are as adorable and weird as those of their host nation. Here are a selection:
Tom (USA)
Tom is the American embassy’s mascot. He’s a jellybean because the countless flavours of jellybeans represent the USA’s diversity.
Fintan (Finland)
The Finnish embassy’s mascot appears in anime videos and has 130,000 followers on Twitter. Apparently, like many westerners drawn to Japan, he’s into cosplay- he’s always wearing a lion costume.
Shaloum-Chan (Israel)
The Israeli embassy’s adorable mascot, Shaloum-chan, is a cockatoo extending an olive branch. His name is a combination of the Israeli word for peace, “shalom”, and the Japanese word for cockatoo, “oum.” The creator clearly knows how the Japanese do mascots.
Peccary (Ecuador)
Ecuador’s odd-looking Peccary is based on a clay figure in the Bizen Latin American Museum in Bizen, Okayama Prefecture, a city for which he also acts as a mascot. Peccary is quite the crooner, and has released a CD of covers of other yuru-chara’s songs, “Peccary Sings Japanese Popular Local Mascot Songs”.
Muay Taishi
Unveiled last year, Thailand’s Muay Thaishi is a kickboxing sea-bream/ ambassador. His name is a clever amalgam of the martial art, Muay Thai, and the Japanese words for sea bream (“Tai”), and ambassador (“Taishi”).
I hope embassies keep rolling out these characters, and the trend catches on worldwide. We can achieve world peace, through the efforts of rotund, friendly mascots.