Random. That pretty much explained what happened to me for the past few weeks.

As I have mentioned in my previous post before about my friend who came to Japan and how I showed him around the town, I accidentally met a couple of TV crews and they asked me for an interview right on the spot on that same day.

The next day, they called me and asked me to come to the studio to participate in the shooting of the program. I also learned that the TV program is called “好きか嫌いか言う時間” and it will be aired on 19th December at TBS.

Once, we’ve finished talking on the phone, they left me bewildered with my own insecurity. But, why me?? Honestly, my Japanese is not perfect and I’m pretty sure there are better people out there.

But then again, variety is the spice of life. So, I thought why not give it a try?

Long story short, it’s the D-day of the shooting. The meeting point was in Sejyougakuenmae Station which took me for about 30 minutes or so  to get there from my station. When I arrived at the station that evening, I saw several foreigners already gathered up, so I just nonchalantly joined them. FYI, they came from Columbia, Vietnam, and Lebanon. Little did I know that they were actually used to this. They were not first timers, and for sure, they had been living in Japan for more than 10 years. Just what did I get myself into…

Finally, one of the TV crews came and picked us up with a minibus. Once we arrived in the studio, they distributed some name tags with our name, age, and country written in Katakana.

It’s good to be punctual. But, waiting for two hours before the show was definitely such a waste. I guess the Japanese were concerned because of the stereotype that foreigners tend to be late.

Anyway, this was how it looked on the backstage.

And this is the stage.

There were three themes for that day and it all related to foreigners. The first one was about drugs. The second one was about overtime working. Last but not least was about sex education in Japan.

This is me with a Belarusian woman and a Columbian guy.

As time went by, the debate started to grow into chaos. Everyone stood for their own opinion. Out of the 90 participants who appeared there, only less than 10 people who actually had the chance to speak. Me? I was literally just sitting still there looking pretty.

Anyway, it’s a good experience and it’s always good for a change.