Monday, October 17, 2005
Musings on Fall in Japan, Elections
Today I thought I'd take a break from talking about Macs in Japan, in spite of the interested response I've gotten from readers here and abroad.
Fall, in my opinion, is far and away the best season in northern Japan. If you know anything about the hellishly hot and sticky summers and cold and wet winters here, you know that that's not saying much. But if it seems barely habitable for the rest of the year, autumn in Japan blesses us with fresh air, comfortable temperatures, cheaper prices at the market, half a dozen national holidays, and an overall sense of well-being and contentment. The school/work year (which starts in April, not September) is half over, and it just feels like there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Sure, there's the misery of winter still ahead, but it all feels somehow like we're over the hump and it's downhill from here.
There seem to be few festivals or activities to celebrate fall here in this part of Japan. There's no Halloween, "Labor Thanksgiving" day on 11/23 is a far cry from a north American Turkey Day, and no one seems to be interested in parades. There are plenty of official holidays--Culture Day falls on 11/3, Sports Day on 10/10, and Fall Equinox on 9/23, Respect for the Aged Day on 9/19, and the Emperor's Birthday on 12/23. But nothing really happens in my village. Nothing, that is, except the Imo-Ni-Kai.
We all gathered at the local community center (each neighborhood has one, usually adjacent to the local primary school) just before noon on Sports Day. The kids were kicking around a soccer ball outside, while the adults sat on tatami floors at 10 low tables catching up on the latest gossip. The ladies of the neighborhood brought out their giant pots full of delicious Imo-Ni, a stew made of pork or beef, taro potatoes, carrots, onions, seasoned with broth and miso or soy sauce. The women of each block had joined forces to create a culinary masterpiece, which they proudly presented to the judges at the party. Nobody seemed offended when the judges awarded each pot a special title such as, "Too Salty," "Weak-flavor," "Uh-oh!" and so on, culminating with "Best of Show," and other games followed, each resulting in laughter and prizes. The kids were particularly keen on the fishing contest results, since they'd started fishing a nearby creek at the crack of dawn, competing for biggest, most, best and so on. Although other prizes were little widgets and household supplies from the 100 yen shop (like the Dollar Shop in the USA, but with better stuff), the fishing prizes were really cool fishing rods, reels and other supplies. The winning kids were delighted.
I filled my belly. Japanese pickles and sticky rice supplemented the stew, and, of course, the sake flowed freely. I went home by early afternoon to continue getting ready for the week's classes, but the men, young and old, partied on through the afternoon and into the evening. When I took my dog Amy for a walk at 6 p.m., I saw the last of the revellers being hauled off in a van for a post-binge bowl of soba noodles at a nearby eatery.
[Binge drinking is one of those things that is tolerated, and even sometimes encouraged in Japan. When I first moved here, people routinely took me out for drinks and insisted that I get hammered. I didn't have the maturity or willpower to resist, and I wanted more than anything to be just one of the boys. More than once I found myself back home bowed low before the porcelain god.]
Amy began barking at about 8 in the evening. Half a dozen of the revellers were banging on my front door. When I opened it, they pointed to Hiroki, one of the college students who boards in my house, lying unconscious in their van. They dragged him in and layed him on the tatami in my living room. He spent the next two hours moaning, crying, kicking at the dog, vomiting and stertorously breathing. It's not the first time, so after a few minutes of arranging wet towels and a puke bucket and patting his shoulders reasurringly, I returned to my room to watch TV. I am so glad I don't drink like that anymore. Better him than me, though I think he drinks too much, much too often.
*****
ELECTION SEASON
Election season is here, a result of a merger of Tsuruoka City with five neighboring villages. We need a new mayor and city council. Unfortunately, election campaigns are run like those in a banana republic. Cars and trucks with loudspeakers on the roof roam the streets screaming the name of their candidate. "SUZUKI! SUZUKI! TARO SUZUKI! SUZUKI OF THE LIBERAL DEMOCRATIC PARTY! SUZUKI! SUZUKI! VOTE FOR SUZUKI AND THE LDP!" [fictional candidate, of course] To anyone living in a house more than 20 years old with single-paned windows and thin, uninsulated walls, it sounds as if the loudspeaker is IN the living room! The concept, common sense in the USA, of "peaceful enjoyment" as a human right and property right has yet to visit us here. I'm always tempted to put signs in my yard and a placard around my neck telling them to Go To Hell. Unfortunately, anything that can be construed as "interference" with the election process is seen as un-democratic and treated as a serious crime by prosecutors.
There are a few, though not many, good points worth noting about Japanese political campaigns. Political signboards are limited to designated places, sizes and times, and other strict restrictions on advertising ostensibly mean that wealthier candidates can't use their money to overwhelm the public. Some effort has been made to prevent money from determining the outcome of elections. (If it were completely successful, though, there wouldn't be as many political "dynasties" in elected office. Something like half of the national parliament members are sons and daughters and relatives of previous members.)
Unfortunately, campaign restrictions also deny the public easy access to detailed information and debate which might help voters make better-informed decisions. There are no local debates or TV spots, and most years the number of candidates in Tsuruoka only exceed the number of seats by 2 or 3 people, so a large majority of candidates win a spot on the City Council.
As a non-citizen I, of course, do not have the right to vote. Consequently, I don't pay as much attention to election campaigns and to politics as I might otherwise. As a resident, though, I am grateful that the legal campaign season where speaker-clad trucks fill the air with noise pollution lasts only a week, and even then only permits broadcast from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. If I had my druthers, though, I'd at the very least require such trucks to stay more than 1 km away from any school, or better yet prohibit moving altogether, and require a permit for stationary amplified sound within city limits allowed only in public parks and squares.
Tsuruoka City, with a population of about 150,000, will elect 38 new city councillors and a new mayor, each for a 4-year term. Usually in a municipal election each councillor represents the whole city; there are no electoral districts. This time, however, in deference to the five villages which were absorbed into Tsuruoka City on October first, those villages will become districts, with a certain number of seats reserved to each village. It's a one-time deal. In the next election all candidates will be at-large, as is apparently standard throughout Japan.
One other interesting point: rather than casting one vote for each of the positions available, voters cast only one vote for city council. The 38 people who get the most votes will be the 38 city councillors. I'm not sure I understand all the ramifications of this, though my initial reaction is negative. If 38 elected positions are to be filled, why doesn't the voter get to express his opinion for each of them? Or at least for a specific number that represent a particular part of the city?
Were such a system implemented in the USA, it would favor conservatives and the wealthy. Districting is an important system that allows minority neighborhoods to elect officials that represent their specific point of view to the city, state, or nation. That would surely not happen if they were subsumed into one large block. Maybe in Japan such considerations are unnecessary; there are very few neighborhoods anywhere in the nation dominated by ethnic, religious or economic minorities.
That's all for today. There's surely more to share with you, and I am still answering questions that you've e-mailed to me. For the reader/listeners who requested some Japanese lessons on my podcast, I'm still working on the first one. I've been cursed with mic trouble, then computer trouble for the last 3 weeks. Hopefully I'll be back up and running by next week. BFN. ¶ 10/17/2005 01:12:00 PM
Fall, in my opinion, is far and away the best season in northern Japan. If you know anything about the hellishly hot and sticky summers and cold and wet winters here, you know that that's not saying much. But if it seems barely habitable for the rest of the year, autumn in Japan blesses us with fresh air, comfortable temperatures, cheaper prices at the market, half a dozen national holidays, and an overall sense of well-being and contentment. The school/work year (which starts in April, not September) is half over, and it just feels like there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Sure, there's the misery of winter still ahead, but it all feels somehow like we're over the hump and it's downhill from here.
There seem to be few festivals or activities to celebrate fall here in this part of Japan. There's no Halloween, "Labor Thanksgiving" day on 11/23 is a far cry from a north American Turkey Day, and no one seems to be interested in parades. There are plenty of official holidays--Culture Day falls on 11/3, Sports Day on 10/10, and Fall Equinox on 9/23, Respect for the Aged Day on 9/19, and the Emperor's Birthday on 12/23. But nothing really happens in my village. Nothing, that is, except the Imo-Ni-Kai.
We all gathered at the local community center (each neighborhood has one, usually adjacent to the local primary school) just before noon on Sports Day. The kids were kicking around a soccer ball outside, while the adults sat on tatami floors at 10 low tables catching up on the latest gossip. The ladies of the neighborhood brought out their giant pots full of delicious Imo-Ni, a stew made of pork or beef, taro potatoes, carrots, onions, seasoned with broth and miso or soy sauce. The women of each block had joined forces to create a culinary masterpiece, which they proudly presented to the judges at the party. Nobody seemed offended when the judges awarded each pot a special title such as, "Too Salty," "Weak-flavor," "Uh-oh!" and so on, culminating with "Best of Show," and other games followed, each resulting in laughter and prizes. The kids were particularly keen on the fishing contest results, since they'd started fishing a nearby creek at the crack of dawn, competing for biggest, most, best and so on. Although other prizes were little widgets and household supplies from the 100 yen shop (like the Dollar Shop in the USA, but with better stuff), the fishing prizes were really cool fishing rods, reels and other supplies. The winning kids were delighted.
I filled my belly. Japanese pickles and sticky rice supplemented the stew, and, of course, the sake flowed freely. I went home by early afternoon to continue getting ready for the week's classes, but the men, young and old, partied on through the afternoon and into the evening. When I took my dog Amy for a walk at 6 p.m., I saw the last of the revellers being hauled off in a van for a post-binge bowl of soba noodles at a nearby eatery.
[Binge drinking is one of those things that is tolerated, and even sometimes encouraged in Japan. When I first moved here, people routinely took me out for drinks and insisted that I get hammered. I didn't have the maturity or willpower to resist, and I wanted more than anything to be just one of the boys. More than once I found myself back home bowed low before the porcelain god.]
Amy began barking at about 8 in the evening. Half a dozen of the revellers were banging on my front door. When I opened it, they pointed to Hiroki, one of the college students who boards in my house, lying unconscious in their van. They dragged him in and layed him on the tatami in my living room. He spent the next two hours moaning, crying, kicking at the dog, vomiting and stertorously breathing. It's not the first time, so after a few minutes of arranging wet towels and a puke bucket and patting his shoulders reasurringly, I returned to my room to watch TV. I am so glad I don't drink like that anymore. Better him than me, though I think he drinks too much, much too often.
*****
ELECTION SEASON
Election season is here, a result of a merger of Tsuruoka City with five neighboring villages. We need a new mayor and city council. Unfortunately, election campaigns are run like those in a banana republic. Cars and trucks with loudspeakers on the roof roam the streets screaming the name of their candidate. "SUZUKI! SUZUKI! TARO SUZUKI! SUZUKI OF THE LIBERAL DEMOCRATIC PARTY! SUZUKI! SUZUKI! VOTE FOR SUZUKI AND THE LDP!" [fictional candidate, of course] To anyone living in a house more than 20 years old with single-paned windows and thin, uninsulated walls, it sounds as if the loudspeaker is IN the living room! The concept, common sense in the USA, of "peaceful enjoyment" as a human right and property right has yet to visit us here. I'm always tempted to put signs in my yard and a placard around my neck telling them to Go To Hell. Unfortunately, anything that can be construed as "interference" with the election process is seen as un-democratic and treated as a serious crime by prosecutors.
There are a few, though not many, good points worth noting about Japanese political campaigns. Political signboards are limited to designated places, sizes and times, and other strict restrictions on advertising ostensibly mean that wealthier candidates can't use their money to overwhelm the public. Some effort has been made to prevent money from determining the outcome of elections. (If it were completely successful, though, there wouldn't be as many political "dynasties" in elected office. Something like half of the national parliament members are sons and daughters and relatives of previous members.)
Unfortunately, campaign restrictions also deny the public easy access to detailed information and debate which might help voters make better-informed decisions. There are no local debates or TV spots, and most years the number of candidates in Tsuruoka only exceed the number of seats by 2 or 3 people, so a large majority of candidates win a spot on the City Council.
As a non-citizen I, of course, do not have the right to vote. Consequently, I don't pay as much attention to election campaigns and to politics as I might otherwise. As a resident, though, I am grateful that the legal campaign season where speaker-clad trucks fill the air with noise pollution lasts only a week, and even then only permits broadcast from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. If I had my druthers, though, I'd at the very least require such trucks to stay more than 1 km away from any school, or better yet prohibit moving altogether, and require a permit for stationary amplified sound within city limits allowed only in public parks and squares.
Tsuruoka City, with a population of about 150,000, will elect 38 new city councillors and a new mayor, each for a 4-year term. Usually in a municipal election each councillor represents the whole city; there are no electoral districts. This time, however, in deference to the five villages which were absorbed into Tsuruoka City on October first, those villages will become districts, with a certain number of seats reserved to each village. It's a one-time deal. In the next election all candidates will be at-large, as is apparently standard throughout Japan.
One other interesting point: rather than casting one vote for each of the positions available, voters cast only one vote for city council. The 38 people who get the most votes will be the 38 city councillors. I'm not sure I understand all the ramifications of this, though my initial reaction is negative. If 38 elected positions are to be filled, why doesn't the voter get to express his opinion for each of them? Or at least for a specific number that represent a particular part of the city?
Were such a system implemented in the USA, it would favor conservatives and the wealthy. Districting is an important system that allows minority neighborhoods to elect officials that represent their specific point of view to the city, state, or nation. That would surely not happen if they were subsumed into one large block. Maybe in Japan such considerations are unnecessary; there are very few neighborhoods anywhere in the nation dominated by ethnic, religious or economic minorities.
That's all for today. There's surely more to share with you, and I am still answering questions that you've e-mailed to me. For the reader/listeners who requested some Japanese lessons on my podcast, I'm still working on the first one. I've been cursed with mic trouble, then computer trouble for the last 3 weeks. Hopefully I'll be back up and running by next week. BFN. ¶ 10/17/2005 01:12:00 PM
