Noise pollution - are there no laws?!!?

[Pete Francis 0]

Does all the noise pollution in Japan get on anyone elses nerves? Like the hot potato guys truck , the washing stick guy who comes round at 7am on a Sunday , the garbage trucks that talk, and probably the worst of the lot, the few weeks before elections .

 

Or is it just me?

 

More to the point, are there no laws against it, or can anyone just go out there with their speaker and shout?

[damian 0]

when the big black anti korea bus goes past the building i work in, I can hear it clearly... 20 floors up and through double glass windows.

[Pete Francis 0]

anti korea bus??!?

[xxx 2]

[damian 0]

re: anti korea bus.

 

I am not exactly sure if that is what it is. That name was more lazy slang from me. Generally whenever there is an 'issue' with korea (or china), this bus is out in force scaring the pants off anyone who sees it for the first time. It is a lobby movement/extreme nationalistic party... not sure. But it is loud and big and black with a big red circle on the side.

[Ocean11 0]

We occasionally have advert bombing over Nagano. A light aircraft mounted with speakers circles over the towns playing a few notes of awful music, then an invitation to visit the Hanaoka furniture center. I just hope they don't decide to drop samples too.

 

Similarly at New Year, a helicopter was flying around exhorting people to drive carefully. I saw a good few drivers craning their necks up in that 'I'm now looking right up at the sky and not at the road, with my chest against the steering wheel' pose, trying to see where the sound was coming from. Nice going.

[amandanism 0]

those truck things are really really irritating, even more so if you dont understand what they are saying and it just sounds like drivel.

 

i hate them especially when they come around at the wee hours and set off all the dogs barking.

 

we always get the man selling overpriced washing sticks around our house.

 

bamboo ones that i can get in singapore for a buck down the road do the job fine.

[snowboard_freak 0]

I can't believe they actually had a plane with loud speakers! Are your serious or are you pulling our legs??

[Ocean11 0]

Dead serious. I can't tell you how infuriating it is to be bombarded from the sky with bullshit.

I believe there are laws against it, but one of the idiots that was running for governor of Nagano also used this most uncivilized of methods.

[barok 0]

yeah we get it all. . . and you can't forget the bosozoku. . . these clowns have to work ten times as hard here, cuz there are maybe 10 of them total.

 

I saw them once in a parking lot having a meeting. Like making battle plans er sump'n "okay we are going to waste some gas over here, then we're going to break on over to downtown, where we can wreck our engines, then we can meet back at the rendez-vouz. It's gonna be great !"

[snowboard_freak 0]

Ocean (et al.) - i can only imagine how annoying that would be. That would absolutley shit me to tears.

[zwelgen 0]

And dont go forgetting the chimes either. Im not sure if this is just a rural thing but EVERY morning at 7am the chimes from big ben are blasted out from the city office of which I live next door to. Then at midday, 5pm and 9pm. No one has given me a decent explaination as to why, esp 7am why I need to hear chimes at 7am on a Sunday!!!!

 

Luckly my brain has trained itself to ignore it but it still gets me sometimes, esp when Im hungover

[nagoid 4]

Any noise early on a Sunday morning is sure to make me mad.

[Ocean11 0]

In Osaka, I once found where a local bosozoku biker kept his bike. I went there late at night with my bolt cutters and cut every single bit of the bike that can be cut - cables, chain, fuel lines, body work, the lot. It took a really long time to cut everything.

[mogski 0]

db those buses you describe are actually the left wing (or is the right? I can never get the two round the right way.) - the violent and vocal dudes in society. They push for the destruction of the current "foreign" japanese constitution to be destroyed and fuedal time rule structure to be bought back in.

 

I have seen their processions nearly run people over.

 

On the last public holiday which was a celebration of the coming of Japan? a precession of about 50 of them all with loud speakers and pubic hair style hair cuts were crusing the streets of Minato-ku most of the day.

[Antonio 0]

yaaaaaaaakkkkiiiii moooooooooooo

[egglesby 1]

Delicious as the yaki-imo's are, I could do without the noise.

[Davo 1]

The washing stick guys are the worst offenders-always there bright and early on a Sunday morning. I can only think of one practical use for the stick... shove it up the guys #### for waking me up! I'm sure many Japanese people hate all the noise but would never think to complain.

[nzlegend 1]

Whats a "washing stick guy"?

[NoFakie 45]

Clubs and bars with music get hassle for noise, both for their music and for people hanging out outside. In some cases it forces them to close.

 

In that Dogs and Demons book, Alex Kerr mentions that the authorities get far more complaints about croaking frogs (or was it falling leaves?) than the right wingers and their battle buses.

 

Parco's looped "Thank you for your coming" (sic) on the escalator gets to me the most. Hakuba has a Big Ben chime broadcast at 6am, 10am, 3pm and 6pm but it's not too loud at my place. I've been under a speaker when it has gone off and it must be a nightmare living right by it.

[Davo 1]

A washing stick guy sells poles on which you hang your futon I guess.

[amandanism 0]

washing sticks are sticks that you place on metal braces to hang washing on to dry (funny that)

 

for a washing stick be expecting to pay about Y5000

[Dokumanju 0]

whoa mogski, those black armoured buses are the UYOKU, japan's very own nazi's. They are the extreme right, the xenophobes who hate everything that is not japanese, especially gaijin. I once waved one of those buses over and gave them the finger - a guy came out and yelled at me with a loud speaker, but get this, the dude's wearing a brown stormtrooper outfit complete with knickbockers and jackboots. Don't get the left confused with the right in japan. Most of the people in the worker's union (roudoukumiai) and the left wing teacher's union (nikkyousou) that i've met r actually down to earth, nice people. The biggest racket they ever make is their annual mayday demonstration - a march down to the town hall and then off to have ramen. The two r completely different.

 

As for noise pollution laws in japan. There aren't any. Ironically is has to do with free speech, so basically everybody is free to make as much racket as they please. Until sumone complains at least but where it goes from there is completely dependant on who's involved. The complaint will go nowhere if the uyoku/yakuza are involved cos of the fear factor. Just as an example of how fearful the authorities in japan are of the uyoku, my mate put the 16 petalled chrysanthenum mark(the imperial seal, u'll see it alot on uyoku busues) on his car and parked in front of a train station for 3 days and the police and everybody else avoided it. No traffic ticket or anything.

[rach 1]

Elections are bad - 3 trucks all shouting at the same time.

[DrEvil 0]

Most definitely 'evil'.