Japan: Typhoons and television

We have learned from the television that Typhoon Number 11 will reach us Thursday. When we ask our Japanese friends what this means in reality, nobody knows. Maybe there'll be big winds and there'll definitely be rain.


As there's a major drought in some areas where the dams are empty for the first time ever, let's hope the rain hits there. We know about the typhoon because there are two evening news broadcasts on NHK (the government channel) where English translations are conducted simultaneously with the Japanese newsreadings.


This produces an amazingly casual style of news broadcast with, on occasion, lots of 'ummms...' and 'oh sorry' - we quite like it. However there is barely any international news during these broadcasts.