[Niko]

Busy Busy, Noisy Noisy Japan

For a country that invented rock gardens, personal stereos and tea ceremonies, Japan sure can be noisy sometimes.

Walk down pretty much any street here and you're going to face a sonic assault by everything from sweet potato vendors to crosswalk songs to right wing extremists.

With all the noise pollution in Japan, you might think the politicians would want to do something about it, but that's not going to happen any time soon because they are probably the worst offenders in the whole country.

A lot of people wonder why on earth politicians choose to drive around all day in sound trucks instead of campaigning door to door or putting up posters. The reason is that door-to-door campaigning is illegal, and so politicians instead use their sound trucks "senkyou-sha" to do the harassing.

For me, this doesn't make sense. I would much rather have someone knock on my door which I can ignore after looking through the peep hole, rather than being thrown out of bed by these louds sound trucks.

Anthony F.
(English Teacher - Yokohama, Japan)