Moreover, in spite of the licensing of a number of small, local TV stations in recent years, cable is virtually unknown in Japan and the huge national networks are likely to retain their influence in the foreseeable future. Although there is some truth to accusations that the Japanese market remains closed to many foreign products, access to the Japanese media can be remarkably easy for foreigners. In spite of more than a century of close contacts with the West, Japanese are still keenly interested in what they perceive as curious and unusual about the West and its culture. The two young men can be accurately described as vying for the honor of possessing the blandest personality on Japanese television, but given the recent acrimony in US-Japan relations, the Japanese public's demand to be exposed to two inoffensive Americans for several hours each week may not be all that strange. All national dailies and both major national news services run daily interviews with unusual personalities.
Some papers carry two such columns, one each in the morning and afternoon editions.
A simple calculation will show that Japanese print reporters must hunt down approximately 6,000 interviews each year to satisfy the demand for such articles. In one recent month the Asahi carried pieces about a free-lance photographer in New York who covers crime stories, a Korean resident who heads a museum devoted to recording the history of Koreans in Japan, and a young Japanese woman who returned from the UK where she did research on Mother Goose nursery rhymes. For Canadians, however, the most significant interview the Asahi carried that month was virtually unknown in Japan and the huge national networks are likelwith the governor of the Spanish province of Catalonia, who had come to Japan to generate interest among potential investors. The six or seven square inches the Asahi gave the Spanish governor probably justified the man's trip to Japan. Access to the personality columns of the Japanese press or to the afternoon shows of Japan's TV networks is relatively easy to obtain for even mildly colorful foreigners fortunate enough to have a bit of expert help.