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Educated Answers to Tokyo's Most Oft-Asked Questions

Q: Ahead of elections, I always hear people in soundtrucks at six in the morning endlessly repeating statements like, "My name is Hirakawa. I'm 36 years old." Do they avoid talking about the issues because it's so early? Or are these decoy trucks sent out by the other side to tick people off?
--S.S.

A: Good question. Actually, the politicians who campaign loudly at the crack of dawn are trying to exploit the prevailing theory in brain research, namely that the neo-cortex shuts off during sleep giving reign to the more primitive and aggressive R-complex. We tend to indulge in terrible violent fantasies when half-sleeping, like smashing the candidate's head in with a sledge hammer or sawing off his tongue with a nail file. At the polling place, however, we often feel ashamed and try to make amends through our vote, thinking, "Poor Hirakawa. He was just doing his job. And after all, he's only 36 years old..."

A: You're absolutely right. According to Tsukuba University's Dr. Tsuneo Ise, chief traffic consultant to the Ministry of Transportation: "Today, hats are much less popular than they used to be." However, Dr. Ise does add that very few people in Tokyo bother to observe the walk and don't walk signs either. So it sort of balances out.

A: Not much.

You can also email questions straight to Mrs. Edo-san's desk - but make sure you state clearly in the subject line that your mail is for Mrs. Edo-san, or somone else in the office might read it, and we wouldn't want that, now would we.

"If you keep on telling lies, no one will ever trust you."

A grammar school teacher to personality Tadashi Sato when he was 10. Sato had told his teacher that car windows in America rolled themselves up with the push of a button

Governor Amano of Yamanashi Prefecture on the Aum raids in Kamikuishiki-mura

Asahi Evening News headline the week before the elections

Not-to-be-outdone Mainichi Daily News headline a few days later

Free-lance photographer and self-professed burglar Kazuhito Ueda, 64, on his arrest for theft

The Shinjuku Station Building's My City Department Store on why they closed down the day that Asahara had predicted "a great disaster"

Shinjuku's Lumine on why they were also shut on April 15th

Kenji Mizutani, president of the Tokai Research Institute on how to get by

Father who sued his daughter, an Aum cultist, in Miyazaki

A manager at Barings Securities Japan on the danger of derivatives

Tokyo Governor Suzuki on Aoshima's winning the election

Beat Takeshi on his bit performance in the new film JM

Forget the ministry of Posts and Telecommunications. Forget the so-called "kanji barrier." We've finally figured out why Tokyo nerds took their own sweet time about jumping onto the Internet information superhighway and it has nothing to do with NTT. The truth is that we Tokyoites aren't particularly fond of "looking stupid" and the modem freaks didn't want to embarrass us with individual, personal World Wide Web pages like so many Americans have created.

Unfortunately, the secret is out. All the computer magazines are hyping the web and there's just no more putting off the inevitable. Locals with entirely too much free time have started putting their wedding pictures on display, profound messages like "hi" and personal facts such as "This is not a daibutsu."

Atsushi Shionozaki's page, for example, has references for "Shio's hotlist, Shio's desk, Shio's friends, Flying Shio, More Pics of Shio, Green Tea at Tachibana (with Shio), Shio's Research Environment and Shio's Room.

And there's also that dork who thinks we're really interested in looking at a picture of his house, some idiot named Muray--oops, sorry, Mr. Prime Minister, sir.