Japanese TV

Life in Japan can be quite a shock for newcomers as the whole landscape is so alien, the writing is weird, the language is gibberish, the paople all look the same, (homogenous at least), and the shelves in the shops are stocked with things you won't have seen anywhere else before. However, one aspect of life here can be quite comfortingly familiar, the TV. Yes, TV in Japan is just as noisy, brash, mindless and irritating as it is everywhere else, only more so. The big redeeming feature, though is the availability of English language programmes, (although they seem to be diminishing lately).
When I go home at night, I can sit down and watch the news on NHK, (the national TV channel) and hear it in English by simply tuning the TV to play only the right hand speaker. It is very nice to hear a bit of English every day. Admittedly the news is very Japancentric and world news has to be fairly earthshattering to get a mention. Sports are also very much suited to this country's taste, with baseball top of the rankings, then a healthy dose of sumo and finally, my least favourite sport, bloody football. I rather like the fact that it isn't the 'national sport' the way it is in Britain. They also have some TV series on the bilingual system, but nothing that has really caught my eye recently. Films are almost always bilingual, so I can enjoy them perfectly well, but Reiko prefers the subtitled versions as the Japanese voiceovers are often of quite a low quality and can spoil a good film.
Many foreigners have satellite or cable TV over here, but I prefer just renting videos or DVDs, I watch far too much telly as it is. If I had a constant stream of English language programmes, nothing would get done. All in all, TV in Japan is a fairly pleasant experience, if you avoid the actual tat that the Japanese mostly watch. Incredibly inane game and chat shows with adults acting like very immature schoolchildren, all done at the top of their voices, not really something to soothe your jangled nerves after work. Choosw carefully however and you can enjoy travel shows that reveal hidden parts of Japan that most of us will never see and other countries that we can only dream of.