Japanese TV
It's hard to express the overlying trends of formality, organization, and intensity in Japanese culture. If you're going to go, go all out. If you're going to do something, you got to have the right uniform. There's a freaking uniform for everything. I bet some people even change into a TV watching uniform. I bet there's a different uniform for light strolling vs. walking or moderate-paced walking, but I'm not keen enough to pick it out.

The soap operas basically redefine the genre, with ultra-dramatic scenes that could squeeze a tear out of Dick Cheney and make their American counterpart look like a Jim Carry movie.

Right now there's all these music videos on, but they go so fast I can't tell who's who--there's a new one every 10 seconds. The dancing in the videos, I don't get. And the decorations vary from millions of pink and white balloons to a screen flashing cartoon designs with smoke coming down through stage lights. The singing...well...they try, and they throw in random English words a lot--it's common for them to write half a phrase in English and then switch to Japanese.

The there was this talk show I was watching earlier that was like a combination of Oprah, The Price is Right and Iron Chef--yeah, it's as awesome as it sounds. From what it looks like, honestly, what I think is happening is either a dude or a hot chick comes out with something they just cooked, and they serve it to several judges, who consist of celebrities and food critics, and then the people have to evaluate it and guess if the food was made as a joke or if it's actually a very odd delicacy. Sometimes they'd get up and spit it out. It was great. And then there's all these other people that comment randomly and a studio audience--I can't figure it out.

The commercials are by far the best. I've seen all kinds of washed up American celebrities endorsing things, as well as some pretty creative acting. I just watched this one where a shop owner comes out, starts yelling at the customers, and then all of a sudden, two customers come out with a limbo bar and the shop owner starts partying. I kid you not, friends. Or, there was one where people are eating rice in different situations and look really surprised. At the same time, there's this clapping and chanting I can't make out, and then they zoom out to hundreds of rice packages lined up in a bright room. And then my favorite was a bunch of car sellers sitting on top of a tall, computer-drawn garage, and they all shout something. That's it. Oh, and let's not forget the random cute cartoons that appear throughout all commercials. Those are
pretty sweet too.