NHK Wants You
One evening a couple months ago the doorbell rang, and being the ever intrepid gaijin I went to see what Japan had delivered to our doorstep. Usually the doorbell heralds one of three things; someone from the apartment downstairs in need of computer help, our landlord collecting the monthly neighborhood tax, or the delivery of a package (my favorite). But this time is was something new! A representative from NHK (the Japan Broadcasting Corporation)!
Obeying the masochistic urge welling up inside of me, I opened the door to see what form our communication would take and if I could decipher heads or tails of why he was at our door. After waving around several pamphlets and asking if we had a television he said, “You have to pay, don’t you know?” Blinking several times I told him I’d talk to my husband and ended the very confusing interchange that never would have occurred had I simply not answered the door. I told kzi what happened, and we surmised that the NHK representative was just trying to muscle me into an NHK subscription with his English phrasing. The pamphlet wound up in the garbage and I haven’t thought about it since.