Election time

Isahaya is coming up on, at least, a mayoral election. When we came back from Boston, there were large wooden grids up in various places about town. They had two segments: one with 6 entries, one with 60 (I think). They have 4月10日 written on them.

On Sunday (4/3, for anyone keeping track), there were people out plastering posters on the grids. They ended up with 3 posters on the 6 grid side and not filling 4 slots on the other side. Interesting to note...there are 4 women running for whatever the 50 something people are running for.

Then we noticed the vans. Everywhere we go, even the "privacy" of our own apartment, we are bombarded by people yelling at us. They are campaigning. Chrys reasons that with a dense population, driving around in a minivan with a loudspeaker on top is pretty darn cost efficient. I've gotten stuck driving behind a couple, and it makes me want to rip my ears off. They are loud. They are obnoxious. They start between 7 and 8 am and drive around into the wee hours of the night. Today, they have all been even louder than before (their amps must go to 11).

All in all, though, I will confess that one week of loud vans and posters organized on grids is MUCH better than 9 months of annoying television ads and posters everywhere.