Sunday, October 23rd
We all have our blonde moments in life. Unfortunately for this brunette however, mine always happen to be in front of large groups of people and extremely noticeable. This past week I had an audio/visual epiphany so grandiose that it is beginning to make me question my efforts to get into law school.
It all began last Tuesday, when a suited NHK (Japan’s public television) salesman came around to my apartment demanding money for the free TV service his company provides. I tried to insist I did not have to pay because my TV was not working for some reason. I plugged it into the wall socket, but all I saw was white noise. He of course did not believe that I was a college student who did not watch TV (I had trouble even saying it out loud myself) and thought I was a foreigner trying to pull one over on him. Eventually, between the language barrier and my ridiculous notion of my TV not working, he gave up and slammed the door in my face.
Several days later life came full circle when I was complaining to a friend about how my TV wasn't working. Patiently listening to my technical woes, my friend asked me, "well have you got the antenna cord?" I think my look of blind disregard for what he was talking about was what made him laugh, or the fact that I am so completely stupid that I didn't even realize that just plugging in my $50 used TV wasn't enough...I needed to be hooked up to an antenna. I literally felt like crawling into a nearby cave and just living like a pariah under a rock, but instead laughed it off and headed to the holy grail of electronics: Yodabashi Camera.
In this 9-floor megastore of technical gadgets I found my antenna cord and remote control which now allow me to enjoy plenty of Japanese variety shows and soap operas...which are much funnier than in America. Even if you can't understand Japanese, the melodrama and terrible acting is actually worse than “Days of Our Lives” and “Passions” back in the States. And I didn’t even think that was even humanly possible to beat. Fortunately for me, however, it is possible and provides for endless hours of entertainment.
We all have our blonde moments in life. Unfortunately for this brunette however, mine always happen to be in front of large groups of people and extremely noticeable. This past week I had an audio/visual epiphany so grandiose that it is beginning to make me question my efforts to get into law school.
It all began last Tuesday, when a suited NHK (Japan’s public television) salesman came around to my apartment demanding money for the free TV service his company provides. I tried to insist I did not have to pay because my TV was not working for some reason. I plugged it into the wall socket, but all I saw was white noise. He of course did not believe that I was a college student who did not watch TV (I had trouble even saying it out loud myself) and thought I was a foreigner trying to pull one over on him. Eventually, between the language barrier and my ridiculous notion of my TV not working, he gave up and slammed the door in my face.
Several days later life came full circle when I was complaining to a friend about how my TV wasn't working. Patiently listening to my technical woes, my friend asked me, "well have you got the antenna cord?" I think my look of blind disregard for what he was talking about was what made him laugh, or the fact that I am so completely stupid that I didn't even realize that just plugging in my $50 used TV wasn't enough...I needed to be hooked up to an antenna. I literally felt like crawling into a nearby cave and just living like a pariah under a rock, but instead laughed it off and headed to the holy grail of electronics: Yodabashi Camera.
In this 9-floor megastore of technical gadgets I found my antenna cord and remote control which now allow me to enjoy plenty of Japanese variety shows and soap operas...which are much funnier than in America. Even if you can't understand Japanese, the melodrama and terrible acting is actually worse than “Days of Our Lives” and “Passions” back in the States. And I didn’t even think that was even humanly possible to beat. Fortunately for me, however, it is possible and provides for endless hours of entertainment.
posted by Kristin at 3:51 PM
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