NH-Wha?

Spurred on by Libby's question on "What is the NHK?" I give you another edition of..."Maria in Japan."

This week's episode: "Battle with the NHK Lady!"

Dum, dum, dum.

***

Maria is in her apartment, puttering about one evening when she hears a knock on the door. Owner of hand that knocks on door does not announce him/herself.

Maria slowly creeps to door. Well it's more like two paces; this IS Japan, land of the tiny!

She looks at peephole.

Strange person in a suit.

Dum, dum, dum!

Tune in next week for what she does! (Hint: you guys already know.)

***

As several of you noted, it might be the NHK lady. Or person. They come to collect the fees that no one pays.

What fees? NH-Wha?

NHK is like the BBC. In fact, according to Wikipedia, NHK modeled itself on the BBC. I was able to make that connection pretty quickly since I lived in London, and remember the tv ads and bus ads and posters plastered everywhere warning people who don't pay the BBC fees. It's state-run television, to some extent (hmm, that sounds very Cold War Soviet Union). So in Japan, you have a lot of variety shows and samurai dramas and such.

Regardless, Japanese tv does suck. I only watched it extensively during Golden Week at Mayuko's condo in Shirahama and only enjoyed the commercials.

Japan does have a law stipulating that people pay certain fees. But they don't enforce it! Hence the NHK lady and attempts at freaking me out.

On the outside of the apartment doors in my building are the stickers with numbers for the gas and electric, and a sticker that says "NHK." I knew about the fees when I was checking out my apartment and asked my landlord about them. He actually started to laugh. No one pays the NHK fees. Just like no one pays the BBC fees. But in England you get screwed over more.