which to me recalls the Imperial Japanese interpretation of US elections, that they choose their emperor by putting in bids in the manner of a public auction.
The three plenipotentiary members of the Japanese embassy: Shinmi Masaoki, Muragaki Norimasa, and Oguri Tadamasa who travelled to America in 1860 also reported that the Senate looked like nothing so much as 'the Nihonbashi Fish Market in Edo' ( see them here: http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=588828&l=303142dbbe&id=756513153)
America through Foreign Eyes: Reactions of the Delegates from Tokugawa Japan, 1860, by Yasuhide Kawashima, in the Journal of Social History, Vol. 5, No. 4. (Summer, 1972), pp. 491-511.