TV in Suomi

18th February
Sunday

Another window into the psyche of a nation and its people is through seeing what they allot time to on their tellies. Hmmm. This is fraught with hurdles, however, as the foreign visitor is at an enormous disadvantage. There are the obvious barriers of language, culture and history and rather than being able to make a slick analogy about a nation's television and the people who watch it, the subject deserves deeper study and consideration. Which I am not about to do in a hurry.

A couple of years after my arrival in Japan, I found myself working among an uncouth bunch of Pomes in a language school in Jimbocho, North Tokyo. These were not true expats on fantastic overseas-rate salaries, bonuses and perks but the school had a long history and was highly regarded having garnered contracts with most of the large trading houses, banks and government ministries. Its staff were bright, educated and motivated; mostly by the fat paychecks that could be earned. We had left behind a country that was on the brink of another economic meltdown and here we were earning hourly rates that we could only have dreamt of back home and if you could fill your week with 30 hours at school, you were doing well. This entailed being chummy with the head of timetabling so most of the teachers had lucrative private classes, sometimes at unsocial hours, thus leaving very little time for anything else.

I knew guys who were monthly yen millionaires when the exchange rate was around 250 yen to the pound. Today's rate of around the 120 mark, would double your money. Wow! We had spent a lot of time in Thatcher's Britain and while we may not have shared her political ideals (most of the country didn't), we had embraced the get-rich-quick crassness that had swept through the western world of the 80's.

Outside classes and preparation, the average English language teacher spent most of their time in Tokyo's many bars and nightspots. I was one of the few who had settled in and had an appreciation for the culture; I was married and was on the way to going native. My colleagues used to call me Hiroshi, a very common Japanese name. This was meant in a derisoury way, because by this time, while having only a limited grasp on the language, I could understand Japanese TV and thus found entertainment at home.

A couple of years after joining the teaching staff, I moved to the testing department - no work on Saturdays, no early morning starts at company offices; a nice steady 9 to 5 type of job except it was more like 9 to 4, rather than the 7.30 to 9 at night teaching pattern with lots of waiting around. This was probably the beginning of my downfall for it was here that I was forced into close proximity with two of the most cynical people I have ever met. When explaining his unpleasant behaviour and outlook on life in Japan, one of my new colleagues explained that because he couldn't understand Japanese TV and found the culture and humour base, his only entertainment was his quick wit and hurtful jibes.

This summed up a lot of the non-Japanese I knew. They couldn't understand the language and had no insight into the culture so therefore considered it inferior.

I am not about to fall into that trap here and will allow time before I make any judgements about the Finnish culture. Suffice to say, I am able to gain a certain amount of entertainment from the box due to the large number of English-language films, documentaries and dramas which are broadcast with Finnish subtitles. This is helping me in my quest to pick up the language and may help to explain why everyone, from the staff in the local bank to the ladies on the cash tills in the supermarket, can speak such good English. The education system may have something to do with that as well but that is a subject for a future post.