Sunday, July 27, 2014

秘密県民ショー The Kenmin Show


How is it possible that I have never blogged about The Himitsu Kenmin Show before?  For as little as I am interested in American t.v. (with a few notable exceptions), I absolutely love Japanese t.v., and The Kenmin Show is tops. Joe and I started watching it years ago when we first lived in Japan, and I was beyond thrilled when I found out last year it is still on the air. The Thursday night show brings together representatives from every province in Japan and then investigates quirky things about the different provinces. Sometimes the hour long episodes focus on one specific province (I loved the Okinawa special that aired just before we went to Okinawa), and other times they have segments on different provinces. The himitsu, or secret, is usually something related to food or language- for example this past week they revealed that people in Ehime put rice in their udon (noodle) soup, other times it is related to attitude or general cultural norms, as in this clip (with English subtitles) of Osaka vs. Tokyo. The show is really popular, and in addition to being hilarious has also provided conversation with a variety of friends and coworkers who also watch the show. For a true idea of the entire show, check out this link (but it has Chinese subtitles!).
 

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