randomwisdom.com

It appears it's election time again, which means the campaigners are in full swing. Colorful posters with catchy slogans, rallies and debates at the community center, cars with loudspeakers... wait, cars with loudspeakers??

In Japan it seems to be perfectly legal to strap a pair of bullhorns to your car, drive around, and scream your own name at the top of your lungs, between the hours of 8am and 8pm. I don't mean a quaint little truck playing patriotic music like in Back to the Future, but literally shouting the same thing repeatedly, rapid-fire, into the microphone, at ear-splitting volume. You can even hire other people to do it for you. Most people I've talked to seem to agree that the cars are obnoxious, and I've personally had to stop several lessons until the disruption passed.

I tried to explain how the United States and most of Europe have general public noise regulations. Everyone seemed to be astounded for some reason. Is that such an amazing thing, to expect other people not to make ridiculous amounts of noise when you're trying to study, or work, or SLEEP? (Yes, I patiently explained, those people who work at the 7-11 have to sleep at some point, and I can't imagine they're thrilled about having their rest disrupted.) I went on to say that being that obnoxious in the U.S. would be a great way to have your tires slashed, windows destroyed, and the bullhorns removed from the car with a baseball bat. At the very least, why don't they have a law against it here?

So I'm trying to think of ways to exercise civil disobedience. I think a good tactic would be boxing them in on the road with a few cars, getting out, and handing them a flyer demanding they stop the noise and find another way to advertise. I don't care who you are, you're not going to drive through my neighborhood and be an asshole. I don't know if the police would be sympathetic, but I think the only reason it still goes on is that nobody wants to make a stink about it.

Earlier, one of the servers for my web host was down while they moved operations to Texas, so if you tried to access the page two days ago I'm sorry it didn't work. It would have been nice if they had told me BEFORE taking things down...

I had a rather interesting weekend. Saturday was a mandatory workday for me because the students all had their sports tournaments, and I had to go. So I drove to the neighboring town of Shikama, and bounced around between the ping pong and the kendo tournaments to give my support and rally the troops. Both our teams won at ping pong (eat that, Forrest Gump!) but we didn't do so well at swordplay. After a quick lunch, I headed out to the junkyard to find that last pesky part for my project, an open-element "intake air sensor". (Incidentally, on the way out I bumped into the secretary for the lab I used to work at in Sendai. She made me promise to visit sometime.) At the junkyard, digging around for a half hour or so gave me something that I think should work, if I spend some cash to have someone drill a hole in my manifold for installation. But after a lot of extra reading maybe I don't really need to go that far after all. I'm going to try using the stock sensor first. Anyway, I hung out with the junkyard guys, bought 'em some sodas for helping me out, and watched them disassemble a rusted out bucket of a kei truck that looked like it had been to the moon and back. At the end they just lifted it up with a big chain suspended from the ceiling. Did you know the engine for a kei truck is located smack in the center of the chassis? Amazing what one can learn about cars by looking at them from the inside out. I left when they broke out the blowtorches, but by then they pretty much had the whole thing broken up.

Sunday I went with my girlfriend to meet one of the kids at her daycare. The little guy, who was about a year old, completely freaked out when we first came in the door, but about half an hour later his curiosity kicked in and then things were OK. I must be getting more comfortable around kids, because we played for over an hour before he got sleepy and we left. I think the girlfriend was using it as a sort of test, and I guess I passed.

Monday I had the day off, so I slept in until about 11 before hopping on the bike and heading into Sendai. It looked like a good day for gyoza, so I popped into the old shop by the kaikan. The chef seemed a lot more amiable than I remember; we chatted about his old trips on a bike through Japan, and later discussed the feasibility of a trip down the Japan Sea coast by bike. Then to fulfill the promise I made earlier, I rode up the big hill to Aobayama and said hello to the good professor. He told me a lot of stuff I didn't really want to hear, but is probably still good advice: things like how I should be enrolled in a Master's program right now, how the job I'm in is a waste of time, how it wasn't likely I'd be able to even get a job in Tohoku doing engineering. He gave me some enrollment materials before I left, but I think if I get a Master's degree I think it would be wiser to do it in the U.S. Not only would it look better on a resume, but I don't think my kanji is up to snuff, nor will it ever be, even after another year of study.

I've been talking with the girlfriend about future plans. She doesn't speak English, and I don't think she'd be comfortable living in the U.S. for even 6 months. She'd be separated from her family and friends, in a country where she doesn't speak the language and so probably can't make any new friends. All the jobs in Japan that are in my field appear to be in Tokyo; but I can't see how anyone in their right mind would settle down or even live there. Cost of living alone would suck up more than half my salary. So I guess it means I'm going back to America at least for a year or two to get a job, and hope that she can adapt. Here's wishing for a miracle.