Among them is that cats are afraid of these water filled plastic bottles. So they fill up the largest bottles that they can find which are typically these 1.5 liter bottles (hah! you thought they had 2 liter bottles here didn't you! don't even dream of those mega 3 liter ones!) and line the street poles and gardens or walkways with them.
One of the first times I saw this was actually around a street pole and I was wondering if it was some poor deluded fools idea for bumper protection for a car. And was like well that is a nice but unnecessary thought. Boy, was I wrong. It is even more unnecessary.
Perhaps you are wondering why they would even want to frighten away cats. Well cats are considered a kind of an unwelcome, but friendly enough nuisance. It seems there is a sufficient number of strays in Japan (only, or by far and large the majority of them being, cats to my knowledge) and they don't really do much to keep them under control. I say this because it is what the Japanese people believe, but in reality, there aren't that many, but enough to make them want to put out these water bottles. Perhaps there are more in the inaka...I do see several cats in around my Kyoto city apartment, but they seem to all belong somewhere, or are very good at pretending. Anyways, Japanese people don't want cats for the same reason that Americans don't want raccoons, which the Japanese think are cute and amusing and keep them in zoos. Don't even let the Japan talk you into believing they have wild raccoons, those are entirely different beasts. They don't want cats around because they will get into the rubbish bags and bins (on rubbish day) and knock things over and in general be the weird skittish little nuisance they are at home.
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