Wednesday, November 17, 2004
Fire Day
Today was fire safety day at school. Before going outside to look at the shiny fire engine we were all subjected to a couple videos about how to avoid starting fires and what to do in case of a fire. Of course both videos were animated. I'd like to think that it was animated for the kid's sake but I'm positive they use the same videos for adults. This is a country that is supposedly 99% literate and they waste the ability reading comics. Every day I see businessmen reading soft porn comics on the train. With all the great literature this country has produced (Mishima, Soseki, Murakami, Endo, Abe, etc.) the population wastes its time reading stupid comics. Wait...I've digressed. Anyway, the fire videos were like nothing I've ever seen. Let me give you the lowdown on one of them.
--Situation: A couple of kids are playing video games while their mom is cooking dinner. Dad comes in from work.
Dad: "I'm home!"
Kid A, Kid B, Mom: "Welcome home!"
Dad: "What a hard day at work."
Kid A: "Dad, are you drunk?"
Kid B: "Dad sure looks drunk."
Dad: "Yeah, I stopped and had some drinks on the way home."
Kid A: "Man dad, you smell like liquor."
Kid B: "Yeah dad, you stink. You sure are drunk."
Dad (to Mom): "Urrgghff.... Alright woman, I need some food, a beer, and draw me a bath!"
--Dad sits down on the couch and lights up a cigarette. He takes a couple drags off it and sets it in the ashtray. The house starts shaking because of an earthquake. Cigarette falls out of ashtray onto the floor and starts a small fire. Aforementioned drunk dad stomps fire out with slipper and saves the day.
I just sat there in complete and utter disbelief. The Australian girl that works there and I were discussing the video. We couldn't decide if it was good to show the kids their reality, no matter how horrible it is, or should they have candy coated it a little bit. Either way, its very sad when you realize that this situation is the norm here.
The coolest part of the video was that the kids were playing the original super Mario brothers and the music from the game was in the background the entire duration of the video.
--Situation: A couple of kids are playing video games while their mom is cooking dinner. Dad comes in from work.
Dad: "I'm home!"
Kid A, Kid B, Mom: "Welcome home!"
Dad: "What a hard day at work."
Kid A: "Dad, are you drunk?"
Kid B: "Dad sure looks drunk."
Dad: "Yeah, I stopped and had some drinks on the way home."
Kid A: "Man dad, you smell like liquor."
Kid B: "Yeah dad, you stink. You sure are drunk."
Dad (to Mom): "Urrgghff.... Alright woman, I need some food, a beer, and draw me a bath!"
--Dad sits down on the couch and lights up a cigarette. He takes a couple drags off it and sets it in the ashtray. The house starts shaking because of an earthquake. Cigarette falls out of ashtray onto the floor and starts a small fire. Aforementioned drunk dad stomps fire out with slipper and saves the day.
I just sat there in complete and utter disbelief. The Australian girl that works there and I were discussing the video. We couldn't decide if it was good to show the kids their reality, no matter how horrible it is, or should they have candy coated it a little bit. Either way, its very sad when you realize that this situation is the norm here.
The coolest part of the video was that the kids were playing the original super Mario brothers and the music from the game was in the background the entire duration of the video.
# posted by Unknown : 8:34 PM
