NHK World - A Look Behind the Scenes

Hail, hail. I'm a Government-Sponsored Cultural Ambassador for Co-Festa now, at least in title (I realize I'm making that sound like something huge. It isn't, but it's certainly something pleasant.) That entitles me to certain cool things, like yesterday's visit to NHK's headquarters in Shibuya! Ever heard of NHK? They're Japan's national public broadcasting organization. Their NHK World channel is broadcasted worldwide, and that was the main focus of our visit.

And so it was that I met up with the other CoFesta ambassadors, who happen to almost all be students in their 20's. They're a nice bunch, and, although I didn't join CoFesta in hopes of making friends, I did find myself walking out with quite a few. They're quite an international bunch, but I quite was proud to be Canada's sole representative (at least amongst the few that were gathered yesterday.)

Awh yeah, center left.

 All that aside though, our visit began with a tour of the NHK Newsline studio, where International News is recorded and broadcasted from. We arrived smack in the middle of a recording, and got to see the staff full on at work for a weather report. Once done, the weatherman greeted us on his way out, and the studio was ours to have a look at and play around in. We promptly did.

Why aren't I a radio host?

Next on schedule was a tour of their radio booth. We had a quick look at the facility, and were guided through the Radio Japan office, where it was explained to us that Radio Japan broadcasts in 18 different languages.
 As we walked through the office space, we stopped at every language and some of the ambassadors got to exchange a few words with the hardworking staffers of their respective language. We must've been quite a sight, because a few people got up and started taking pictures of us. All is well!
 When we got to French, I happened to be the only French-speaking person in the group. "Hello," I said, in French. "Hi. Sorry, I'm really busy," said the only man working in that department at that time. He was actually a French-speaking Japanese. "Oh. Please go on," I replied. And that was that. Oh well.

We were soon escorted to a meeting room and given a briefing about NHK World. As it happens, one of their
shows, called Journeys in Japan, is looking for foreigners to bring to different sides of the country for five days, all expenses paid, while a camera crew follows them around. I took note of that, although they do hope for better Japanese speakers than I. Who knows, maybe some day.

It looked something like this.

 After a break, our visit culminated with a visit to a recording of the music-oriented television show, J-Melo, where we had an opportunity to take a peak at the host, May J (who you should look up) recording. Unfortunately, we weren't allowed to take pictures or record here, seeing as the show had not yet aired. We were treated to a short live presentation of the Japanese rock band, Flow, who broke big through anime and are known mostly for having sang one of the opening themes for the very famous anime, Naruto. Fighting Dreamers, anyone?

 And that was it! From there we were given 1000¥ to cover transportation expenses, and broke up into the night. It had been a very enjoyable experience, and, though I didn't know what to expect at first, I ended up leaving quite satisfied at having met the others and being treated to the nice visit and live show. Hurray, ambassadorship!