Why don’t Japanese cyclists obey the rules?

July 23, 2013 at 5:56 am (Japanese cyclists)

I keep on coming back to this question, because there seems to be such a change between Japanese on foot, on two wheels and on four. For example, cyclists jumping red lights where pedestrians and motorists never would, cycling with umbrellas, ignoring one-way signs on streets, and protests against changing a law against more than one child seat.

I wonder whether cycling became  popular during a chaotic period in Japanese period like Taisho or just after WWII.

Much more on this topic by clicking on the Japanese cyclists category above.

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Why does political campaigning in Japan mainly consist of waving hands in white gloves from vans?

July 6, 2013 at 8:57 pm (Japanese politics)

It’s mainly because so many other kinds of campaigning are restricted. No knocking on doors or ads are allowed, online social media campaigning was banned until this election, and even the number of leaflets one candidate can post is limited. The fact that it is usually just accompanied with “Vote for (name)” with no policies at all from the van’s loudspeaker makes me think that those things actually suit the politicians with their complete lack of ideas of how to improve Japan, but it also of course might have contributed to the lack of actual policies.

According to yesterday’s International Herald Tribune, the white gloves stand for clean government and the laws restricting campaigning were meant to level the playing field between rich and poor candidates.

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