Youtube, the internet’s most popular video sharing service was recently forced to wipe 30,000 files from its website due to copyright issues. The Japan Society for the Rights of Authors, Composers and Publishers is considering lobbying for a screening process for videos being posted on the site, to prevent copyrighted material from being illegally screened. Most of the clips that find their way onto the internet from Japan are from TV shows or commercials. They are also immensely popular viewing. But why?

The answer lies presumably in the innate quirkiness of Japanese TV programming. It seems that westerners regard the everyday weirdness of Japanese TV with a mix hilarity and confusion that makes viewing compulsive. Indeed receiving an email with a link to a befuddling or disturbing clip featuring Japanese people maltreating or otherwise embarrassing themselves is not by any means an irregular occurrence for many.

I remember some time ago I received an email with a link to one such clip. The show was one of these physical challenge type shows where the guests have to perform feats of limited athletic prowess to an audience who invariably laugh as they are humiliated. In this show, a group of pretty young Japanese women had balloons stuck to their backs, and had to run around for sixty seconds and evade an aggressor who was determined to burst them. The aggressor in this case was a muscular seven-foot-tall shirtless black man bearing an expression of affected animalistic cruelty. Having a microphone shoved into his face, he bellowed in English “I SHALL DEFEAT YOU ALL.” Then the referee blew his whistle and he was off. For such a huge guy, he moved with the swiftness that surprised and terrified his cutesy-girl opponents, who squealed and shrieked in naked terror as he pursued them relentlessly around the room, bursting one balloon after another, howling and ballooing. The Japanese girls slipped and slid around in a futile effort to escape his terrible wrath, but when the sixty seconds were up, not one balloon remained. The presenter broke up the melee and separated the victorious gaijin from his vanquished foes. A couple of the girls were actually crying. I couldn’t believe my eyes.

Aside from doing absolutely nothing to negate certain ingrained racial preconceptions in Japanese culture – that all foreigners are animalistic and rapacious - this clip serves to highlight the sadistic edge of Japanese comedy. The Germans would call it Schadenfruede. As the Japanese would say: “Tanin no fukou wa mitsu no aji” which roughly means “others misfortunes taste of honey.”

Popular with internet viewers is the game show “Silent Library” where inexplicable and terrible things happen for no reason at all. The game plays like Russian roulette, each player picks up a card, one of which has a skull and crossbones motif on it. If they draw that card, a horrendous punishment will be inflicted upon them by their fellow contestants. Among the tortures I witnessed was “Wasabi Roll”, where the hapless contender is forced to consume the some sushi laden with the aforementioned foodstuff. He of course then hacks, coughs, slavers a bit and demands some water. Later on in the show the poor fool falls victim to two other pranks – “Bad Smell Air” and “Slapping Machine”, the first of which involves the donning of an air mask which supplies the contender with foul air, as he once again nearly loses his lunch, the second of which needs no explanation: his colleagues hold him down while a machine delivers a series of painful looking slaps. The most terrifying of the torments inflicted though was “Old Man Bites Tenderly”. This involved an elderly Japanese man who removes his dentures and then furiously gums the ears of the unfortunate bearer of the skull and crossbones card. He whimpers and moans in obvious discomfort as the old man takes his fleshy earlobes into his toothless mouth and jaws on them. Truly awful. Also I forgot to mention as it's set in a library they have to be silent at all times.

I have to confess, I don’t really “get” Japanese TV, and not just because I suffer from the twin curses of cultural ignorance and lack of Japanese language ability. Japanese TV programs, in general are a great deal cheaper-looking than their US, Canadian or UK counterparts – the sets seem to be sparsely decorated and the props seem to be primarily made out of card. Possibly it only seems this way to me because there are so many variety shows on Japanese TV and they are reportedly very cheap to make, or because my TV set is broken and I can only get two channels.

I remember the first time I switched the TV on when I arrived in Japan. The show that I watched featured a man with a red coat, whose sole purpose in life seemed to be to wake people up really early in the morning, for no discernable reason. He would drive around town in his car, wearing his red coat, in the early hours of the morning, when it is still dark outside. Then he would select a house and go up and knock on the door. When the residents emerge, bleary-eyed, he announces they are on TV and their expression immediately changes from weary irritation to delight. Usually then the resident will invite the red-coat-man in for tea and they will discuss the prank in detail. One time, the red coat man arrived at a door to discover that the resident had left it unlocked, so being as quiet as he could he snuck himself and his camera crew in, and made his way to the residents bedroom. Seeing a woman asleep, he shook her awake. She immediately freaked out, thinking the intruder was either there to rob, rape or otherwise mischief her. But the red coat man explained she was on TV, and she soon saw the funny side of it. I cannot begin to comprehend what the point of this Endeavour of his was was.

But it’s not all juvenile torture and dubious pranks on Japanese TV. From my experience, Japanese TV is generally very boring. For instance, most shows on Japanese TV in the evening - especially around mealtimes - stick to the following formula. Some food will be cooked. The food will be Japanese in origin, or if foreign in origin at least so thoroughly Japanified for public consumption that it will be unrecognizable as such. Generally speaking, I have no idea what the food is, often it is sushi, which is easily identifiable, but more often than not it will be a food that the gaijin does not know and is possibly not meant to know. Ask your Japanese wife. In any case after the food has been thoroughly examined a middle-aged woman in a kimono will pick up a pair of chopsticks and gingerly take a bite. She will usually look shocked for about three seconds then cover her mouth and say “O… O… Oishi!”, elongating the last syllable for an inordinate amount of time to accentuate just how delicious the food is. I myself gain no pleasure from watching middle-aged women eat sushi so this type of programming does not interest me, but there does seem to be quite a lot of it, so it must appeal to somebody. God only knows who though. Some degenerates no doubt.

The other thing that bothers me about Japanese TV is that there’s always so much clutter on the screen. Numerous titles and assorted text cover the screen at any given interval. What they say is an enigma for my non-kanji-reading self, but much of the time they seem to have a sense of mysterious urgency about them, or so the double-exclamation points would suggest. Also, is there any reason why there needs to be a box with somebody’s face in it in the corner of the screen constantly? Why is the host’s reaction to a woman eating sushi deemed important enough to merit being shown in a separate frame while the event is taking place? My theory is this: just as Japanese school students will seek to confer with others before answering even the simples of questions, so the Japanese TV viewer needs complicity before reacting to the images the TV shows. It has the same effect essentially as the laugh track does, it encourages the audience to react thereby strengthening the empathy between the viewer and the people on the screen. Ha! Nice psychological voodoo, but you won’t fool me. I can see through your cheap parlour tricks.

So am I selling Japanese TV short? Am I missing out? I decided to spend the whole day watching TV to try and find out. I witnessed rather a lot of baseball coverage, which given the season is unsurprising. Also I saw a documentary on the Japanese volleyball team. In this documentary the exquisitely coiffed members of the volleyball team are harangued and pushed about by their menacing coach, who forces them to perform various menial tasks around the gym to learn self-discipline. He has them scrub the floor and sweep up. Then he forces them to write some kind of essay. This both amused and delighted me. The boys of the volleyball team are of the bangs-and-white-jeans type you see in trendy clothes stores, with immaculately plucked eyebrows and vacant expressions. Which makes it all the more hilarious to see them being savagely berated by a squat, square-headed minotaur of a volleyball coach.

Later on in the afternoon I witnessed a singular event, a father/son swimming competition which pitted three families against each other. Not too interesting except that the men were all rake thin with a ghostly pallor, and clearly in far worse shape than their kids. Too much work and not enough exercise perhaps? The best bit of this show was when the presenter tied the kids together and made them swim in opposite directions. How nobody drowned I have no idea.

The next show I watched actually was quite transfixing. It was that show where the hosts reunite families who have been separated for years. In a series of reconstructions it told the story of Yumi-chan, the guest on the show. A child of mixed Japanese and Filipino parentage, when her parents split up she is forced to return to the Philippines with her Mother who abandons her in the rural Philippines. My favourite part of the reconstruction was when the mother tells her this is where she is going to live and the child-actress says “eeeeeehhhh???”. Of course, of course the poor girl doesn’t want to stay in the smelly Philippines, poor thing! God forbid. In any case, she eventually goes back to Japan to live with her mother and “new father” an abusive drunk. Eventually Yumi-chan’s mother snuffs it and leaves her alone. Quite sad, of course but that’s when TV does its magic. The presenters locate her father and they are reunited on the show. Yumi-chan, now an 18 year old mother, who has been sobbing solidly since she entered the studio, finally meets her father, who also starts blubbering and raking his hands through his thinning hair. Then the host, who had surely been selected for this job due to how dignified he looks when he cries also let a noble tear roll down his cheek. And then the other presenters started sobbing uncontrollably too. Then the audience. I could here the woman in the apartment next to me start to cry too. That must be good programming.

Later on I watched a solid action movie about a Japanese Naval ship that gets taken over by bad army men, and are fought off by two navy guys who save the ship with only minor scratches. Having not seen a decent boat movie since Under Siege this was refreshing to me. Lots of people get shot and one of the heroes drowns a woman in the ocean. Fresh.

So in the end of the day, behind all the juvenile humour and arbitrary punishments, perhaps Japanese TV is worth watching after all. It’s just like TV back home, if you sift through the tripe for long enough, eventually you might come up with a golden example of televisual ambrosia. But at the end of the day maybe you’d be better of reading a book or getting some exercise. I feel ill.

Good evening brothers and sisters. I must apologise for the relative length between this and my last post. A combination of exam time, international jet-setting and crippling laziness mean I have not had occasion to get to the computer and actually write down my many wonderous observations for the benefit of you, the public. So what have I been up to?

Well, let me tell you - I have visited the new world and seen it with my own eyes. What a thing to have done. I have experienced both the Canadian provinces of Quebec and Ottowa, and - albeit accidentally - had a little taster of Texas. But I will get to that eventually. For you shall see even the best laid plans can be ripped usunder and brutally defiled by bureacracy and paranoia. The plan was this - visit Montreal with my better half, meet her mother, see a bit of the town and then attend the wedding of her best friend at which she was to be a bridesmaid. Easy! But what was all that about bureacracy and paranoia? Well, I will tell you.

Kaki left Japan for Montreal a week earlier than me, to do general wedding-oriented stuff that a hirsute and uncivil Scotsman had no place in. I was to leave from Kansai airport for Dallas Fort Worth and transfer to Montreal. Again, easy. Nothing to it. Or so I thought.

A quick word for those of you going through U.S. customs - Don't. I have never been subjected to a more invasive and accusitory screening procedure anywhere in the world. One step inside a U.S. airport and it's 100% clear that innocent until proven guilty doesn't cut it here. I was subjected to probing and unnecessary questioning to prove I was indeed who I said I was and fingerprinted like a common criminal. In addition to this, all passengers had to remove their shoes and put them through the metal detector - to the obvious displeasure of the Japanese passengers, whose custom it is to have specific footwear for indoors and outdoors. Making them take off their shoes and stand around in their socks in the dirt goes against the most basic principles of decency in Japanese. It considered both unhygienic and tremendously uncivilised. They could've put a tarp down, but no - this is U.S. Customs and the only important thing is security. I could see some kind of ad campaign: U.S. Customs - Because We Don't Give A Damn About Yours. Because for some reason there is no transit in U.S. airports, which would have allowed me to stay in the departure lounge and go straight to my plane, even though I wasn't visiting the U.S. I had to fill in the immigration papers and the rather erroneous form asking me if my purpose of visit was business, pleasure or international terrorism, and if I had taken any part in any war crimes or acts of genocide during WWII (I wonder if they actually ever expect to catch someone out with that? That would have to be one severely dumb terrorist, or slow, senile Nazi). In addition to this, I realised too late, that this means I had to re-check my baggage in Dallas. By the time I figured this out, I had wandered past a security desk and was not permitted to go back for my luggage, which sat in plain sight on a conveyer belt. That's how it happens in U.S. Customs. Bam! You're meeting your girlfriend's mother in some other guy's clothes. It was 24 hours before I would get my stuff back.

However, when I eventually arrived I had a tremendous time. We stayed for the first few nights at the rather stylish abode of Kaki's friends Steven and Dahlia. They have a beautiful house, a wiiiiiiidescreen TV, a pool table and a ridiculous-looking pomeranian. We were made to feel very welcome and treated to barbeque and beer. Since I don't really get jetlag, and Kaki suffers from it in a big way, I had a few mornings on my own, which I utilised by watching the Sopranos in the highest definition possible on that truly massive TV. My favorite Soprano is Paulie Walnuts, which probably reveals more about my character than I should. In any case, after my sweetheart had raised herself cursing and baggy-eyed from her pit we'd go to town and see the sights. We took in Montreal's scenic Old Port area, from the shore and from the river, and we patrolled the stylish centre-ville streets of St Laurent and St Denis. Finally, we sampled the colours and culinary delights of Chinatown. Montreal is a beautiful city, comparable in so many ways to any city in Europe, and not just for the chatter of French spoken on every streetcorner. The city is overwhelmingly Catholic and many beautiful churches can be seen, dating back to around one hundred years ago, notably the massive St Joseph's Oratory also St Patrick's Basilica (which I would visit for the wedding).

We passed by Dawson College, the spot where a week previously a psychotic 25 year old gunman walked into the school and started shooting at random. It made me think about how lucky we are in the UK to live in a country where use of guns is not so widespread. The worst we have to worry about is getting chibbed by some wideboy outside the kebab shop on a Friday night. Could you imagine if these idiots had guns? Scotland has more than it's fair share of street violence, and some places aren't exactly safe, but I count myself lucky every day that guns aren't a part of our culture. Think about Dunblane - after that there was a huge armistice of weapons. My Grandad was a farmer, and he handed in every gun he had. That's the sensible pragmatic solution. But that couldn't ever happen in the States. Guns are a huge part of their culture, and nobody seems to think to say, I know, why don't we just make guns illegal? "But then only criminals will have guns" they would say. But it would stop high school kids blowing each other away with their father's hand cannons and automatic weapons which they *need* to hunt small bunnies. So stupid.

Anyway, sorry for that little digression, back to what I did on my holidays.

We also went to Ottawa, where we toured the Canadian Parliament building and I was strongly chastised by a mountie for applauding one of the politicians, which apparently you aren't supposed to do. Hell, I was just being polite. Outside I got my picture taken with some genuine mounties. I have nothing but respect for these people. They're like a dapper F.B.I. on horses.

I did eventually meet Kaki's mother and sisters. Despite my fears, they actually turned out not to be terrifying as I had anticipated, but very welcoming. I put my success down at least in part to my almost supernatural ability to charm women over the age of 40. I went round to their place for dinner and ended up meeting a seemingly inexhaustible supply of relatives who turned up. I think I made a good impression anyhow, despite minor difficulties - Kaki's mother has a very strong African accent and sometimes I can't follow what she's saying, although a lot of the time she has no idea what I'm saying so I guess it all evens out. What the hell, we'll get used to it.

The wedding, of course, was quite an event. I had prepared for it by wrapping myself in my kilt and all the associated paraphanelia. I cut a spectacular figure walking into the church let me tell you. Since the bride was West Indian in descent and the groom Sri Lankan, I was clearly nobody's relative - people just assumed I was a bagpiper, though why they'd hire one is beyond me. The bride and groom both brought a little of their culture to the proceedings - there was Caribbean music and Sri Lankan dancing. It was very colourful and impressive. After the wedding we removed to the Ritz Carlton for the reception (classy!) where I quickly befriended the white-coated gentlemen at the free bar and started to mingle. I got a bunch of attention for my kilt-wearing, including a dozen people asking me if I was wearing anything underneath (no) and some even asking to take a photo with me. There was also a few people who came to me to practise the standard North American art of cultural denial - ie coming over and explaining to me exactly why they are Scottish too, and describing their family's rather tenuous links to the Motherland, which are rarely convincing and always make me feel a little uncomfortable for some reason. Nevertheless I had a great time, and I must have had a fair amount of booze because I danced without feminine coercion, which is rare for me.

When it was time for us to leave, Kaki's mum dropped us off at the airport and we lined up to once again traverse U.S. customs (which is done in Canada for some reason). I maintain there would have been no rush if the guys in front of us hadn't been checking in boxes of guns for which they needed a million forms. I was fingerprinted and interrogated AGAIN and we arrived at our plane with five minutes to spare, as I hopped on board tying my shoelaces. Of course, then we sat for around three quarters of an hour waiting for the rest of the passengers to get on board, before finally taking off. At this point it was obvious to us that we were not going to make our connecting flight. When we did get off we ran for the plane but found it had already left. Despite the Captain of our first flight's heroic attempts to stall the flight so that all the passengers could get on board, apparently this Captain didn't feel the need to stick around. So we did all we could - we left, forced the airline to give us a hotel, which they did as it was their fault, and disappeared into Texas. We were seperated from our luggage, for the second time in my case, so we had very little to keep us going. I changed some money and we went back to the hotel. We ate lunch and tried to chill out and see the bright side of it - two countries for the price of one and all that. The only thing to do in the area was go to the mall, where we went shopping, ate fajitas and saw a Kung Fu movie. We also saw Oprah's gopher Dr Phil, who was in the mall promoting his wife's book. I had no idea who he was so failed to be star-struck. I wonder if Phil is his first name or last name? Anyway the next day we went back and got on the plane, and when we arrived, a day late and a day of nenkyu (holidays) less, I opened my luggage to find it full of ants.

Ants!

By this point I was more or less completely hacked off and was glad to get home and roll immediately into bed.

Although it was probably only a minor news story back home, here in Japan the birth of a baby boy to Princess Kiko and Prince Akashino was big news. The young prince, as yet unnamed, is the first heir produced by the Imperial family in 40 years. The birth comes as a great relief for Japanese conservatives, who are now hoping that the debate that has been raging regarding whether or not women should be allowed to succeed to the throne will go away. Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, who proposed the reform last year was heavily opposed by hardline conservatives who believe that only a male heir should be allowed to succeed, some suggesting solutions as radical as Crown Prince Naruhito taking concubines. Survey suggests public opinion is that there isn't any reason why women shouldn't be given the chance to succeed, but the conservative minority is by far the more vocal of the two camps. Thankfully, the birth of a son gives the Japanese government the chance to objectify the discussion; perhaps a dispute whose consequences lie 70 or 80 years into the future will be a less touchy subject. For now though, the mood is joyous. Japanese people are unequivocally delighted by the news of their future Emperors birth. Both camps are united in celebration. Everybody seems to have accepted the birth with a feeling of relief and pride.

While not a monarchist by anyone's standards, I find this quite touching. Growing up all I can remember about British Royal Family is scandal after scandal, affairs, alchoholism, public racial slurs, the Queen snapping a pheasant's neck, and whole lot of other events I don't care to remember. While the media must take a certain amount of blame for pursuing them endlessly and not giving them any privacy, I've always felt a little embarrassment on account of their antics. It's refreshing to visit a country where they actually respect their monarchy. It's just different. It feels good not to wake up every morning and see Prince Harry dressed as a Nazi on the front of my newspaper and think These are the people who are representing me on the world stage. If you want to look at a country whose people have respect for their monarchy, take a look at Thailand. Everywhere you go in Bangkok the King's face can be seen. They have huge posters, giant billboards, statues, paintings hanging in every household. His bespectacled visage is inescapable. I went to see a movie, and at the beginning of the film the words "All Rise And Pay Your Respects To The King" came up on the screen. Immediately everybody stood up, and the national anthem started to play. Still seated, and knowing if I stood now I would be spotted, all I could do was awkwardly sink lower into my chair as a montage of patriotic images of the King was played - the King riding a horse, the King addressing his people, the King wearing safety goggles and gazing intently at a test tube (he's a chemist? Inspiring.) and finally the King playing golf. While the sheer distilled patriotism of the occasion was enough to make any believer in liberal democracy shiver slightly in trepidation, it was still impressive. Here, like in Japan, is a monarch people actually look up to.

Maybe we need a King. Ideally someone like a monster hybrid of Elvis, Jesus and Robert the Bruce, someone with style, daring, intelligence, guts and an agenda. But that's dangerous thinking.

As this is my first post, allow me to introduce myself. My name is David Blackwood. I was born in Kirkcaldy in 1983 and grew up around the town. I studied in Aberdeen and then last year I moved to Japan to teach English. My town is called Ena, in Gifu Prefecture, a beautiful and mountainous area roughly in the centre of Honshu, Japan's largest island. Ena sits in a river valley, surrounded on three sides by mountains. It has roughly 58,000 people, a little less than Kirkcaldy, but spread out over a larger area in smaller villages which have emalgamated with the town over a period of time. In the surrounding forests monkeys are often seen, and very rarely bears are sighted.

Japan, as many will be aware, is an extremely homogenous society. Long periods of isolation, from medieval times up until the end of the last century, and again after the war, have meant that immigration is minimal. The largest groups of immigrants are Chinese, Koreans and South Americans, - the majority are Brazilians - who mostly do low-paid manufacturing work and are kept at arms length by the Japanese community in general. Most of the non-Asian immigrants are centred on the urban areas like Tokyo, Nagoya and Osaka, so you can imagine the regular Japanese persons confusion at seeing me wandering around in a small city up in the mountains.

Yes, when I first arrived I felt like a regular rock star. Everybody was curious, and they all invariably asked me the same questions: Do I like Japan, do I like Japanese food and what part of America am I from? Fortunately I had memorized the phrase "Watashi wa Amerika-jin ja nai" (I am not American) in case of this eventuality. The answers to the other two are more complex. Do I like Japan? - Yes, I do but sometimes it drives me up the wall. Do I like Japanese food? - Yes, but if I have to eat another cup of dry white rice I'm going to karate chop someone. Like its food, Japanese culture is often frustrating and confusing, but it's these differences that are teaching me day by day to be a more open and understanding person. I'm no longer scared to try new things - I've knowingly eaten bowel. And like its culinary counterpart you have to react the same way to the cultural opportunities afforded to you in this place - never refuse an invitation, never miss a chance to see something that could change your life. You have to take life by the reins and accept what it throws at you, and enjoy it, even if it did used to be part of an animal's digestive tract.

Fortunately for me, the curiosity has worn off now, and although people recognise me on the street, and I am pretty much an accepted member of the community, people mostly leave me to get on with it. At school I am comfortable teaching and interacting with the students, and my Japanese is good enough to get me out of most scrapes (there's still room for improvement though). I have a number of good Japanese friends, and a number of good foreign friends. I also have an awesome Canadian girlfriend. I know my way around town pretty well and often take long trips in my beautiful but filthy & dangerous car. I am very much in my element. Yes, life is pretty sweet.

With this blog I hope to give you a little insight into what it's like for a Scot living abroad - the various trials & triumphs, some facts, some outlandish anectdotes. Hopefully armed with those ingredients I'll be able to paint an accurate portrait of this unique experience.