Reform now; because children are the future

Since I've lived in Sonobe, I have noticed a lot of politicians have their signs up all year round. I'm not sure if it's from the supporters or a benefit of office, but you see the same faces all over the place. I did not notice this when I lived in Nagoya, but I may have missed it then. When I've gone to Kyoto and Osaka these posters also seem less prominent, but maybe they're just hidden with all the other advertising clutter.

The guy I see the most around my town* is Yasuhiro Nakagawa of the formerly ruling LDP (I assume he's still in office).


I never paid much attention to it until one day I walked up close to one and saw the smaller picture hidden in his sports coat. His ad basically says "Reform now, because children are the future" and he lives up to it; apparently he has six children spread out among his four wives. I also like that most of the children and one of the women look like they're crying.


"Children" and "future" seem to be the most common words I hear from people campaigning**, though that may be because I don't understand or try to follow what they're saying. I find this ironic because there are so few children in Japan that they population is expected to decline significantly in the next 50 years, from about 125 million today to perhaps 80 million. Somewhat anecdotally I can say that the average classroom size in my schools seems to get smaller as the kids get younger. It's also a widely reported statistic that up to 1/3 of Japanese couples (including 1/4 of recently married, young couples) do not have sex at all. So really, perhaps children aren't the future.



* I also see a lot of Kazuo Shii, the leader of the Japanese Communist Party or JCP. The JCP gets a fair amount of support, something like 7% in an election last year. Two of their main issues are wanting the US military out of Japan and the destruction of all nuclear weapons. I know a number of people who said they have voted for the Communists for those very reasons, but also because they are upset

** This does not include people driving cars or otherwise speaking in public areas. The people in cars typically just repeat the candidate's name and "please" while driving around neighborhoods, rolling down a window so that passengers in all four seats can wave gloved hands at anyone who happens to be in the vicinity. I am 100% serious about this.

Other people are often outside of a crowded shopping area standing on top of a minibus speaking into a PA system or blow-horn. These typically are super-nationalists who are criticizing US troops in the country, China/Korea, or sayingt something else that comes off as generally negative.