Fast Confession - St. Valentine´s with Tomio Okamura: Infidelity has no Place in Serious Relationships

Your every day schedule is stuffed from dawn to late night. Do you even know the concept of private life?

Certainly so. However, I have the advantage that the work I do is the one I enjoy and want to do. I would say that this has been so throughout my life, because I have - quite frankly - never before been in any employment relationship. I have always been either doing part time jobs or I was doing some business. And I've been doing business since I´ve been 21 years old. That means that in fact any work which I did was my own choice. The result is that I am not tired in any significant way and I don´t feel that I would be losing my drive. I have a choice.

I may sometimes look tired, but in reality, it is not so because every day I very much look forward to working. Today I am already looking forward to tomorrow and also the next week. My work is very creative and varied, so each day is full of various surprises, positive as well as negative ones.

What does your normal working day look like? For example, what time do you get up?

It depends on what my schedule is. I am a man who works mainly late into the night, so I go to sleep on average at half hast two or three in the morning, and get up between 8 and 9 a.m. When there is a meeting of the Chamber of Deputies, of course I get up between seven and eight in order to manage it all in time. When there is no meeting, I begin to work even for example at ten o´clock. While still at home, I open the computer to be able to assign the tasks necessary and to get into the picture. Every day I finish work around the ten, eleven o´clock. And I go to sleep around three.

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Is there any room for private life?

I regularly go to gym, on average four times a week, sometimes even five times. I am also a member of an Olypic trap club because I enjoy shooting. I have a great coach who also has similar views as I do, it´s Olympic winner from Beijing, David Kostelecký. The discipline is called Olympic trap, clay pigeon shooting. I enjoy it very much, but lately it´s been difficult to get the time.

Otherwise I also enjoy a sauna, but that is beside the gym, so I always have time for about seven, eight minutes, then I have to rush off. The problem is that my work is my hobby… in this I have Japanese blood, I was born as a man who likes to work.

Asians are like that.

Yes. And I particularly enjoy my work, so it doesn´t tire me. In the morning I get up and switch on the computer, within fifteen minutes I check the company and political affairs, I read the various e-mails from my closest associates and assign tasks to get an over. Then I mostly get to the House, because I devote 99 percent of the time to politics. One percent is given to my business. Fortunately, I have good management staff everywhere so it works well.

I have constant meetings, every day there are also interviews with journalists, there are discussions about legislation and a lot of political meetings. SPD has twelve thousand MPs, so it is quite a large party. And if you want to "manage" 12 thousand people then of course there is more than enough work. There are many people who work here; from the lawyer up to the executive secretariat which deals with all sorts of audits, so that we are in compliance with all the legal regulations. There are many letters and phone calls, so everything needs to work well, everything must work like clockwork.

In the evening I usually have either some meeting with the media, or I write something, thinking about what should be done next. For example, yesterday I was in the radio till nearly midnight, today there is a business dinner.

What do you intend to do on St. Valentine´s? You have said that you do celebrate it.

Nothing yet, it´s a question whether anyone will want to celebrate it with me.

I did not want to ask you directly if you are single or not.

I would not like to talk about my private affairs in concrete, but I would certainly be happy to celebrate it with someone. It depends on the other party, if there will be a celebration.

So, you are not sure yet?

Well, I do not know yet.

And have you asked her?

I have.

So, she did not yet say?

Not yet. It is of course also a time problem.

But when you love someone, you will make the time, whether it´s St. Valentine´s, or an ordinary day...

Certainly so.

Do you think that if you are employed like this that it is good to combine love with the workplace? Is it a solution of how to spend more time with your other half?

I think there are all sorts of relationships. There may be good relationships at the workplace as well as outwith it; it is difficult to assess this.

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You have been married to a Japanese woman. Can you compare a relationship with a Czech and a Japanese woman?

I have been married only from may twentieth to my twenty-fourth year, so essentially it´s been 22 years ago, but I think that it is exactly the same. I knew some women from different parts of the world, and I must say that basically it´s not about nationality, because when the woman loves you, the result is very similar. It is more about her character because say some women are very ambitious and therefore put their work and career before the partner. But my experience is also that even very capable, ambitious girls, when they like me, can without any difficulties adapt their programme to it, too. It is always about priorities of the women. When a woman is in love, she can always find the time.

What kind of a gift from a woman gives you the greatest joy?

I do not know whether this is about a specific gift. Any attention is obviously pleasurable. That means a caress or when a woman takes your hand because she wants to. I think that is a very nice moment that I certainly appreciate. These are the right moments. In my case it is not about any gift. A gift is a nice idea, and it is certainly also nice, but it is not just about St. Valentine's Day, rather about an ongoing relationship. These small thinks are very important in my opinion.

If a woman would like to invite you for a dinner, what should she cook and what would please you the most?

Basically anything, really.

Do you eat everything?

Yes. Just the invitation is terribly nice in itself. And most importantly I would like to stress the need to treat women always gentlemanlike and be nice. When I see how some people argue with women, it is a completely unnecessary thing. Firstly, you cannot win with a woman, because there are emotions, so it doesn´t make any sense. And secondly, everything spoils unnecessarily.

To me it seems that this more often affects people who don´t discharge so much energy at work. But I am so busy that I don´t feel at all like proving something in my private life, I prefer quiet relationships. I don´t want to quarrel with anyone, I want peace and quiet and enjoy it.

Nevertheless, you are a very well-known man and I believe that you have a lot of female fans. How does their affection show? Do they send you flowers, messages, photos, invitations?

I admit that from time to time some similar indications appear, but similar proposals arising from online communication cannot be taken seriously by a responsible grown man.

Do you respond to them?

Unfortunately, I am not able to answer that, because only on Facebook I have about 260 thousand friends. There are so many messages and incentives, also through e-mail, that it basically has to be dealt with by my colleagues within the Party. I need to focus on my work, I am here to implement a certain political programme, which I promised.

I am 46 years old, I am not some adolescent who would use his acquaintances, going to parties and having fun with women, certainly not. I need the peace to carry out my political agenda.

Have you ever been rejected by a woman? At any age?

Of course, certainly so. I sincerely cannot remember, the specific situations. Not because this would not be the case, but because I don´t proactively meet women and I fully concentrate on my work. But certainly it happened. And also, it depends the situation.

Someone you wanted to invite for a date, and she said no...

It used to frequently happen earlier, for example at the secondary school because I was stammering to my twentieth year. I spent part of my childhood at a foster care house in Mašťov near Podbořany in the Ústí nad Labem Region; it´s still there. I was bullied and beaten up there and I since then I used to stammer.

When I liked some girl, during my school years I could not even get the words out. Of course, this discouraged me. I understand that the majority of women want to have someone who is not handicapped and not laughed at by others. Well, I was laughed at, I was a stammering outsider, and moreover I came from a foster care house. So, I was rejected many times over. But lately I cannot remember, simply for a reason that I don´t proactively approach anyone, nor am I looking for anyone.

But I think that thas is normal, is it not? Nobody is liked by everybody. I would certainly also be refused by a number of girls and women who do not like our political agenda.

When have you been most in love in your life?

Certainly, I was always in love with my girlfriend. When I had a girlfriend, I was in love. They were all great girls; indeed I wrote about them in my books. I must say that we have excellent relations, at least at Christmas we swap an SMS. They come also to my shop to buy Japanese foods which they got used to with me. They are already largely all, or most of them, married with children. I have always had long term relationships - five, six years, and all of them were terribly good girls.

Thank you so much for the interview, I wish you a beautiful St. Valentine´s day.