Over the past year or so, the mantra of the political world, globally, has been change. Be it successful or not, people keep saying they want a change.
The time has come for change in Japan!
August 30th is going to be the big national election in Japan. The current political party, which is comparable to the conservatives in Canada, have been in power ever since the National Diet was created, over fifty years ago. That is a very long period of conservativeness. In combination with the excessive length of the party’s rule, there has also been a long series of epic failures of prime ministers. Japan has not been able to keep a prime minister for longer than a year for about three years now. Our current epic failure is Aso Taro, a man who could give George Bush a run for his money on his verbal slip ups. He was picked because he is known to be an “everyman” type of person, being a fan of manga and Akihabara and stuff. Instead, he proved, to me at least, that Akihabara is still a place I never want to go if people like him like to go there.
ANYWAYS. the race to election day is on. Now, I know many people complain back home about the campaigns. They’re everywhere, you can’t avoid them… But back in the US and Canada, you can. If you turn off your television or radio, you can be blissfully unaware of the fact there is an election going on.
Not so in Japan. The most popular method of conveying information in Japan is through megaphone. They’re everywhere, and I am convinced that one day, I will be deported for causing harm to the men on the streets, screaming at me to buy their phones. They drive around in vans with loudspeakers attached, broadcasting their noise pollution where ever they go, assaulting our ears with the lies and bull that often come with a political campaign. There is no escaping it.
One has to wonder, while glaring at the woman and her henchmen standing atop her ugly decorated fan, how many people here are listening. Looking around, her message seems to be ignored. People continue to chat on their phones, or walk by. Nobody takes the fliers, nobody listens. People seem to think that this type of noise is just that – noise. Something that “can’t be helped”.
As I walk home from a day out, and do my best to ignore the political candidate talk more about Obama than she does about her own party’s beliefs, I find myself aching for the dirty politics of back home. At least then, I can turn off the television when I tire of it. For now, I’ll sleep with earplugs to avoid being woken by the loudspeaker vans.