Joe Biden Won the US Election. Japanese Mayor ‘Jo Baiden’ Won the Internet.

United States President-elect Joe Biden isn’t the only one celebrating a victory this week. In Japan, a mayor of a small town has become an overnight sensation after going viral on social media. His name? Jo Baiden. Well, sort of.

Yutaka Umeda, 73, heads the town of Yamato in Kumamoto Prefecture. The place has a population of about 15,000 and rarely makes international news but it was all over the internet the past few days after netizens pointed out that the kanji characters used to write his name can also be pronounced “Jo Baiden.”

According to Kyodo News, the mayor’s surname consists of characters that are pronounced “ume” and “da,” meaning “plum” and “rice field,” respectively. However, they can also be pronounced “bai” and “den.” Meanwhile, the character used for his name Yutaka, is commonly pronounced “jo.”  

Kanji is a system of Japanese writing using Chinese characters. Japan adopted this system in the 5th century and now some characters can be used for both Chinese and Japanese words. Some kanji were also introduced at different times from different parts of China, resulting in different pronunciations.

Umeda did not know that he had this random connection with Biden until his family told him he was trending online on Friday. 

“I feel very close to him. It feels as though I've also won the election after hearing about [Biden's] projected win,” Umeda told local media on Sunday. 

While the scale of their roles may differ, he said that he shares the same passion with the soon-to-be U.S. president.

After receiving a flood of messages, Umeda hopes that this could be a chance for his small town to be in the spotlight.

Something similar happened in 2009, when Barack Obama became U.S. president and the little-known city of Obama in Fukui Prefecture made headlines. Local residents even formed a group called “Group that Supports Barack Obama Voluntarily,” in honor of the world leader. 

During a visit to Japan in 2009, Obama gave the city a special mention in his speech saying, “and of course, I could not come here without sending my greetings and gratitude to the citizens of Obama, Japan.”