Moral Education

Sometimes Japanese TV really makes me angry. There are two main things that really get to me. The first is the way that most of the variety shows are all about making fun of other people. At the moment there is a huge emphasis in Japanese schools on "moral education" - respecting yourself, those around you etc. I spent half of an English lesson yesterday trying to get children to respect each other and not draw pictures on each other's legs, not hit each etc. The biggest problem with this is that the "role models" on TV don't think twice about continually abusing each other physically and verbally and then laughing about it. Last night I watched a prime example where a group of "celebrities" went to stay at one of their parent's houses and while they were there one person shaved off the sideburns of another person, another person stole someone's glasses, credit card and mobile telephone and scratched them really badly on an electrical sander. Great laughter then followed..... and then at school the next day the children are told to "respect each other and each other's belongings". It doesn't add up!
The second thing that I hate is the lack of things done for charity here. They have programs like "celebrity millionaire" and when the already very rich celebrities are asked what they will do if they win all the cash a lot of the answers are things like "I will take all my friends out for a good feed of very expensive meat", or "I will build a spa on the veranda of my very expensive apartment". There are a few who say they will give some to a good cause, but they seem to be only about one person in a hundred.
Of course there are many other things that frustrate me about Japanese TV (the fact that it is all in Japanese to start...) -but the list is too long to go into here! It is little wonder that my children have very limited access to TV!