Kirk here with an election billboard and some thoughts on communication in Japan.
An election for some open seats in the prefectural assemble is scheduled for Sunday, the 29th in Kumamoto City’s “District 1.” Where’s this “District 1”? Good question but it’s not easy for me to answer. The official website that shows the boundries of the districts is here:
https://www.pref.kumamoto.jp/site/gikai/7855.html
If you look at it, you’ll see that the resolution of the map showing the districts is so bad as to make it almost impossible to read. This is in stark contrast to the election posters, where every effort is made to make sure that voters will be able to read the candidates’ names. If fact, they’ve made it so easy that you might imagine that the electorate is made up of elementary school students and intermediate-level Japanese students from other countries.
The moral of the story: If you see information that is confusing, illegible, or otherwise difficult to understand, it most likely means that the people who prepared the message don’t really give a **** whether you understand it or not. If people really do want to be clear, it can be done – even in Japanese.
P.S. If I could vote and I were to base my vote solely on poster appeal, Mika would have my vote for sure. ;)