Sunday, April 3, 2011

Noise pollution in Japan

Japanese people in general tend to value peace and quiet. For this reason, it's not unusual for people to complain about noise caused by neighbors, which I guess is understandable. One thing I'll never get, though, is why despite this fact, there seem to be no laws against using extremely loud noise for public announcements.

Sometimes garbage collection trucks will drive by with a recording blaring from an attached loudspeaker, but that's not what I'm specifically referring to, because those announcements tend not to be too loud. What I'm mainly talking about here are political campaigning messages. I've never seen this kind of advertising in any other country, and it reminds me of the way propaganda vans drove around the Soviet Union.



Basically they just drive around yelling "Vote for so-and-so! Thank you very much!"

I can't be the only one who finds this kind of noise pollution extremely annoying.

16 comments:

  1. Don't forget the Black Vans, they're the worst! Also, I hate it when politickers drive by the school during class, it's so distracting >.<

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  2. Oooh, black vans? Believe I've heard of them but never seen them around here. Sounds shady.

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  3. Weren't they supposed to be toning that down out of respect for the tsunami situation?

    One woke me up at 9 am on Sunday, which might have been a blessing.

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  4. Eryk, I dunno. I wish they would tone it down out of respect for peace and quiet, at least.

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  5. For visitors like me, those noise can be quite "entertaining".

    But yeah, hearing them at odd hours can be downright annoying.

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  6. Indeed. It's just noise. If I were voting, I think I'd make a conscious effort not to vote for people who run those damn things.

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  7. The "black vans" are the right-wingers spewing their notions about Imperialism and tossing out the foreigners. They're the worst noise polluters.

    This year, they are supposed to tone it down (show self-restraint). So far, so good, but they'll be back next year.

    The reason it is tolerated is that political advertising on T.V. is illegal in Japan. This is the only way for them to get the word out in a macro fashion.

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  8. Thanks, Orchid. I see. That's too bad...at least if they're on TV you can decide not to watch them.

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  9. Well, they do also apologize loudly through the speakers for in fact being loud. Not sure if that's better or worse.

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  10. Hi Kaori,

    Haha...that's actually kind of funny.

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  11. I am ...and have been listening to those psycho freaks all day.

    I got tickets in Hawaii for disturbing the peace with my car stereo...at least that had a beat!!

    YOSHINAGA!!
    YOSHINAGA ONEGAISHIMAS
    YOSHINAGA!!
    YOSHINAGA ONEGAISHIMAS
    YOSHINAGA!!

    I wanna bb gun so I can pop ou their windows when they drive by.

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  12. I hear you, Chris. Not sure why politicians should be allowed to annoy us.

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  13. It's not just the propaganda wagons, there are wonderful noises like the repeating announcements that tell you how to ride escalators as if people stupid enough to do something dangerous on an escalator are ever going to be deterred by a robotic message they've heard a million times and have likely tuned out anyway...

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  14. Yup, there are annoying noise-makers all over the place here. Just walk down a busy shoutengai in a major city and hear people yelling at you to come into their shops. I just find the campaign vans particularly annoying, but everyone has their own.

    Thanks for commenting, Billy!

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  15. Perhaps many people including me don't like this political campaigning messages.
    In general the noise and wrapping car are forbidden by the law.
    However, only the political things are exception. This is very strange.

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  16. Hey Cocomino, thanks for commenting. Yeah, I feel like those kinds of cars and vans are very out of place in Japan.

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