“I am innocent.” No rush, folks, this has nothing to do with a certain personality currently in custody on a charge of some money-making practices. It has to do with a cute otter the City of Suzaki, Tosa, appointed a year ago last January as the city’s goodwill ambassador to promote tourism. Chitan, as the female otter is called, had appeared on various occasions doing her part in drawing inbound tourists rather well, but all of a sudden the city authorities found her not active enough and sacked her effective January 17.

Now, whatever happened? Chita-chan was doing just as told, appearing in a variety of PR functions and did nothing against her role as Tourism Ambassador. But, there happened to be a person, a male human, who “performed” in the style of Chita-chan and indulged in such behaviors as hurt the image of this animal ambassador. They city folks began complaining his behaviors and eventually the whole idea of having an otter for an ambassador.

The stand-in for Chita-chan, “Chiitan”, appeared in places where Chita-chan couldn’t and did things Chita-chan wouldn’t. In the end, he went out of his way to indulge in rough performance – receiving baseballs on the forehead, shaking lawn-mowers around, etc. Folks started to complain not only about Chiitan but the city authorities who looked the other way and let all that go.

So, the poor, innocent otter, Chita-chan, was fired, leaving somewhat sour memories of ill-planned diplomacy in a local town down in Kochi.

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