Dear JOI Students, Japan is usually a quiet country. One of my first big culture shocks was when I was waiting to cross a six-lane main city street in rush hour, and I realized I could hear a bird singing in a tree on the opposite side of the road!
It's a dizzying array of candidates. And, lest we forget who is running for which office, candidates drive around shouting their names from huge speakers attached to the roofs of the campaign trucks and vans.
Everywhere you go, everyday, all day, for a week, it is a frenzied shouting match. Commercial areas, residential areas, anywhere a voter can be found, a name-yelling campaign van is not far away. Everyone will certainly be happy when it's all over. Although this was the first time so many elections have been conducted on the same day, the overall noise level (annoyance level?) was about the same as elections in the past. To drive home their campaign points, candidates sometimes get out of their cars and make stump speeches on street corners, but most people go out of their way to avoid them.
Democracy is an interesting process. I wonder if we will find a better (less intrusive?) way to select our leadership one day. In Japan, with so many elections for so many positions for a very large government, I often wonder if there is a need for so many representatives. Could too many cooks spoil the broth?
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Elections, Japan Style
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About the Alternate Rooms: Every JOI classroom has an alternate room, which is used in
case of problems or maintenance with the original classroom.
Occasionally during class, there may be a problem with the classroom servers. In this case,
the teacher will instruct you to change to the alternate room.
You can find the URL for each classroom's alternate room at the top of the text chat.
If the teacher instructs you to change classes click on the URL, and go to the new room.
Note: The alternate room URL is also shown on your Current Reservations page next to the classroom name.
In other cases, your class time may coincide with the regular (but randomly timed) maintenance routine.
During the maintenance routine, the classrooms are emptied with a message like:
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 | Are you having problems hearing in the classroom? Have you checked that your headphone volume is turned up and that the jack is in the correct plug-in of your computer? For more info, please read this FAQ. |
 | Is your classroom exhibiting strange behavior (clicking noises, delays, and so on)? If McAfee anti-virus or other security software is installed on your computer, it may be interfering with the classroom software. Please read more here. |
 | The classroom software is not Unicode-compatible. To be able to type and see Japanese in the text chat area of the classroom, you need to install a simple utility application from Microsoft. For details, please check here. |
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A hint to make sure you're heard in the classroom: After finishing what you have to say,
keep the  button pressed for just a second longer. If you release the button too soon,
your last word or two gets clipped off.
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 | Don't be shy! Take a minute and add your comment to the Message Board. Other JOI students would definitely like to hear your take on Japanese culture and language. |
Thanks, everyone, for helping make JOI a great place to learn Japanese! If you have other questions, be sure to check out the FAQs, or if you don't find an answer there, write me at support@japonin.com.
Regards,
Moses
JOI Support
