Currently at the moment I don't have a TV that'll display those many beautiful images that each channel provides. Japan switched over to digital broadcast (is this English correct?) last summer and, well, I became a “TV refugee”. This is a literal translation of terebi nanmin... meaning someone stranded, without a TV. The number of these kind of people is quite high! Let's face it, there's a lot of garbage on TV and if you don't have one to look at, you'll probably be a bit more productive in life.
TV does have some good points, and I might mention these in this write-up.
I went to a friend's house for a Chinese dumplings event. I had lots of dumplings and about five beers slowly and, of course, in the background was the ominous TV. My host would occasionally change the channel to keep the mood of the atmosphere – at least that's what I'm telling myself. To be honest, I can only remember one program that he had on, which was the weekly (?), Kirin (company that's famous for it's booze products) sponsored, art program.
The program was well made but not completely perfect, in my opinion. The thing that irritated me the most was that the program didn’t subtitle people. It dubbed 'em.
Yesterday's program featured the Mona Lisa and various other art works found in the Louvre museum and Orsay museum. Everything looked all nice and I was wowed by the various paintings. Giant canvasses, ten, twenty, thirty times bigger than the human body... paintings that had an impact or significance on society. The amount of the detail was breathtaking.
Regrettably, every time they would interview a French person, you'd be able to hear a bit of what the person was saying, in a slightly muted way, and then after about two seconds, lo and behold, Japanese was spoken!
Just before waking up now, I brooded for a short time why Kirin (the wonderful sponsor of this event) would dub everything out of a French man or woman's mouth. So far, I can think of two reasons....
One. They want to appeal to a wider audience. Let's face it. It's a Saturday night. You're at home with your girlfriend or whoever and, all of a sudden, there's French in the background. “Oh my! This is too strange! A language that doesn't register in my brain. I guess I'll have to read those pesky subtitles. Man, this requires energy,” would probably be the reaction of the common person.
Two. Old people can't read them pesky subtitles and they're too fast and too small!
For me, those subtitles, cheapened the show. All that gorgeous camera work and breathtaking scenery but I never felt I was transported into France because everything was spoken in Japanese. Well, I guess they have to attract viewers and reading subtitles would probably turn off viewers, forcing them to reach for the remote control and strenuously push the button that goes up (or down... what type are you? Are you an upper or downer?).
Like I said above, the sponsor is Kirin and every fifteen minutes or so (I wasn't counting...), there were Kirin commercials, and I mean, only Kirin commercials. This company is so rich they can do this kind of things. Pay a crapload of money to the broadcasting company and they can entertain people, while promoting their products. There's tons of gulping and gasping as professional actors and even Ichiro Suzuki (the baseball player), show the audience how tasty and refreshing it is to “down” an extremely addictive product in your body.
TV... is it good?
