Noisy season

I have given up even asking what election is currently on in Japan. Like memorial services, elections seem to be a continual event here and in Japan that means trouble for those who want to live a quiet life! As well as having poster boards all over the town with cheesy posters of the election canditates there are also cars going around continuously with loud speakers attached ranting on about how wonderful their candidate is. The unwritten rules of the pre-election noise-making seem to include

• Inside each car there must be at least four people wearing white gloves and waving frantically and smiling at any person who is silly enough to catch their eye
• Each person who is part of the campaign must wear a lime green jacket or perhaps neon pink if they are lucky
• The person who does all the talking through the microphones must be a woman (even though the majority of the candidates are men) and their voice must be basically the same as every other person who is doing the same thing in the other cars for the other candidates
• If possible you must move as a convoy while making as much noise as possible and waving continuously until your arms fall off

Basically this whole process drives me crazy. And the stupid thing is that here in the countryside everyone has already decided who they will vote for (a relative or a friend etc.) so the whole process is unecessary.... I guess we should just be grateful that they are only allowed to do campaigning from 8am to 8pm!
By the way.. the photos above are from other people's homepages... everytime I see an election car etc. I never have my camera!