Japanese Pictures, Culture and People

The Japanese like their loudspeakers for public annoucements, sales promotions and many other interestic potential annecdotes, but I shall save those for another time. One of the most fascinating loudspeaker phenomena I have encounted so far is the ‘Time to go home kids’ music. Every day at precisely the same time (4pm during the winter, 5pm at the moment - spring) a tune is played to let the kids know that they should now go back to the safety of their own home as the nasty monsters will be coming out soon. I’d presume the monsters are equally punctual and make their way into the play parks at around 5.15pm to gobble up the naughty kids. Anyway click on the pic above to get the vid - quicktime required, 9mb file.

A brief additional note, the music is piped through a loud speaker system that permeates the entire city as far as I can tell. I believe the loud speaker system is reserved for emergencies such as earthquakes, tsunami or Godzilla attacks.