A nice piece on Atlas Obscura. It describes a daily ritual which can be observed (or rather, heard) across Japan, at or around 5pm. It's the shichouson bousai gyousei musen housou It’s known as the ‘5pm Chime’ (äŗęć®ćć£ć¤ć ) or, more officially (and tellingly), the ‘Municipal Disaster Management Radio Communication Network’ (åøēŗęé²ē½č”ęæē”ē·). That should give you some clue as to what it is for, and why you’ve probably never really understood it. After all, if all you’ve ever heard is eerie chimes or music at dusk, that likely means you’ve not experienced any major disasters (a good thing!) Officially then, the speaker network is part of a nationwide system set up around most villages, towns and cities to warn residents in the case of emergency – especially disaster warnings for tsunamis and informational broadcasts in response to earthquakes. Some systems are also set up to broadcast announcements of severe weather, fire, suspicious persons, dangerous wildlife or simply just...
Cultural Geography and Geography in the Media. For students and teachers of Geography.