The plastic and slapstick variety shows

I seriously envy Masni, who’s now in Cardiff for getting good shows to watch on TV. We would be chatting and she’ll let me know that she’s watching Super Nanny or How Clean Is Your House or Under the Hammer or some other entertaining-yet-educating reality tv shows lucky her gets to watch on free-to-air TV in UK. Not that I’m a big fan of the idiot box, but well, they sure sound a lot more interesting than those variety shows we get daily in Japan.

What kind of variety show? Oh, they have variety of variety shows – cooking variety shows, singing variety shows, multi-talents variety shows, variety shows with lots of interviews and the list goes on and on and on. And here – the show business is borderless, so you’ll see the hosts and entertainers, with a quick fix on costumes and make-ups, appearing on shows on different networks all the time.

I was caught watching one while having dinner one night by Amy, who lives across the hall. “Oh, you are not really watching this IQ reducing stuff, right?” Yes, I don’t understand most of what’s being said – I watched it because I wanted to watch something while I was eating and that’s all. And there wasn’t anything else better to watch.

Seriously – Amy have asked me to swear off Japanese variety shows because of their IQ reducing content. There’s nothing substantial to them, the acting too plastic and they are almost always filled with lots of slapstick. While one doesn’t have to understand what is being said to be able to laugh at slapstick jokes, a heavy dose of it could be rather errr… nauseating. But I guess, at the end of the day, watching some Japanese variety shows while having dinner could not be as damaging as info-mania…

Still, I envy Masni and all of you who get to enjoy good TV shows. I miss the AXN channel. I miss being able to watch lots of English programs. Many English programs and movies are translated to Japanese when they are shown here. But lest I forget, I must be thankful for small things – so I’m thankful that at least someone in NHK has sense enough to air Desperate Housewives in English on BS-2 every Wednesday nights…