Thursday, March 04, 2010

IRIB in Japanese

A funny thing about the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) is that, of all its numerous foreign-language versions, it provides Iranian food recipes, tourist information, a detailed introduction to master musicians of Iran, elementary Persian-language lessons, etc. only on its Japanese-language site. They know my people, whose main interests generally run toward good food, sightseeing, and cultural sampling (usually in that order)!

2 comments:

CEJ said...

It seems to me Iran is not much in the 'public consciousness' here in Japan. People are somewhat aware of Iran being an 'enemy' of the US. Tokyoites are aware of the Iranians who work in the city--with the stereotypes about this type of foreigner being quite negative. Most Japanese know next to nothing about Iran, Turkey or populous Arab countries like Egypt.

Yoshie said...

Check this out: Hazama Kanpei Visits Iran, <youtube.com/watch?v=vb7GA1WggBg>. He got better press for Iran than Ali Larijani visiting Nagasaki. Beyond politics, leftists, as well as Iranians themselves, need to strive to foreground this kind of human interest story in the media in key countries.