Strategizing

For our monthly newspaper column, Tomoe and I decided to focus on the election. For a while we were struggling to find something to photograph that would not be biased toward the local candidate that Tomoe is helping to campaign for (such as a photo of him or his car with his name on it). To make it look more fair I followed another candidate for a half-hour or so, but got nothing good so I decided to drop by our neighbor's (Tomoe's candidate) home. While the candidate is out disturbing the peace with his loudspeaker, there is always a group of men sitting in his living room, I can see them from our bathroom window, and was under the impression that the were "strategizing".

When I knocked on the doo,r I felt bad, as if I was interrupting some important work. It only took a few moments to realize that the important work everyone was doing was sitting around drinking tea, watching TV, and talking about mushrooms and other farm-related matters. I took a few shots of them, but soon realized that a more interesting story was going on in the kithcen.

The wife of the candidate seems to be committed to much more than that candidate himself. The day I was taking photos there were only four women (the wife, the sister, and two volunteers from the neighborhood) who were working in the kitchen preparing meals for all the men who were "strategizing" in the living room. I'm told that the day before there were six. The volunteer women take turns helping out. The sister came back from Tokyo to help out during the campaign time.

Its not just the election though. The council member is expected to host many guests throughout the year. One candidates wife threatened to leave him if he ran, and our other neighbor (the wife of the departing councilman) turned to tranquilizers because she could not sleep with all the work and stress - and this is a woman who was used to sleeping only four hours per night for 15 years as she raised her kids and tended to her farm. If she can't handle it without drugs, what hope do I have when Tomoe decides to run for mayor?