TV

I’ve been distracted from blogging by a Japanese TV show that seems to consist of clips taken from Western TV shows of people doing impressive and/or stupid things. There’s a group of around a dozen commentators who talk about the clips. I can’t understand a word of it but it’s kind of fascinating in that it sort of illustrates something about the Japanese perception of the West. In most cases I think the reaction is something along the lines of, “wow, that was really dumb!” and they’re right.

The commercials are possibly the best part of watching TV here. They’re usually shorter than 30 seconds and often kind of strange, even taking the lack of my understanding of the language and cultural motifs into account. There are a couple for some sort of vegetable juice that involve a youngish guy being followed around by a giant chicken whose comb is made out of eggplants. Right now there’s one on for something that looks kind of like those pre-fab ice-cream cones called Drumsticks, except that it’s flat and seemingly not frozen. It’s being advertised by a woman who’s standing on a beach dressed in nothing except a giant version of the product. Parts of it disappear at intervals accompanied by a crunching sound as she cheerfully takes bites out of a regular-sized one. Now we’re back to the main program. Someone just set themselves on fire and then rode a bicycle off a platform into a stack of mattresses.

Wspent the morning in Kamakura. It was cold and drizzly but not unpleasantly so.

When I have the chance I’ll put up a bunch of pictures on my Flickr site. Now, however, it’s time to get some sleep. It’s 9:15PM; this is the latest we’ve managed to stay up so far.