Loud speaker politics

Political campaigning is another thing the Japanese have their own individual style for. Local elections are currently being held in Japan, with the second round next week.

What this means is that for the last week, and until the 22nd I gather, potential canditates are campaigning in their local areas. But unlike European politicians who are content with token visits in their local communities, speeches in their local party branch, shaking hands, holding babies, groping fruits and the likes, Japanese politicians take to the streets – literally.

What happens is that vans, or big cars, with mounted loud speakers patrol the areas blurting out a constant stream of speeches. And this is pretty much non stop from like 9am till 8pm. And when I say loud speakers, we’re talking enough of them on one van to make sure that you hear what they have to say no matter how much double glazing you’re rocking in your flat/office/house etc… To the monotonous and downright grating sound of their names and promises they drive around waving their white gloved hands out of their windows.

That’s another hilarious thing about Japanese politics. Politicians all wear white gloves (and so do their helpers – the ones in the cars at least) to help promote an idea of cleanliness. The irony of which is pretty priceless.

I got to admit this loud speaker campaigning is horribly annoying – though to the average Japanese, who contends with incredible amounts of in your face and overbearing promotional assaults every day in most places, it’s business as usual. They obviously develop an ability to tune out or tune down those kind of intrusive, aural assaults. An average Japanese main street is pretty noisy on a normal day, with a constant stream of promotional blurbs coming at you from all angles not counting the vocal assaults of people in the service industry, so this is probably no different to them.

I’ve yet to become accustomed to it though.