Misawa Music

Moving to Misawa meant many adjustments for the 4Vs. One of the hardest for me, Mary Beth, besides the loss of Target, is the radio station here in Misawa. It never crossed my mind that moving here meant only listening to one radio station.... a military radio station at that! Sure, we can pick up a couple of other stations on the radio dial, but only one in English.

Since there is only one station, they try to play music that will make everyone happy- a little top forty, a little rap, a little hard rock, a little country, a little classic rock and so on. When we first got here they played the music in blocks of time throughout the day. Mornings were top forty, mid morning was alternative and the lunch hour was classic rock. At least with this system you knew when there might be music you would like and when to not even bother turning on the radio. I was pretty much only a lunch time listener, although I would keep the radio on in the kitchen during the mornings just to hear the local news and announcements. However, the music was awful.

In the last month or so, they have changed the radio format. Instead of playing certain types of music during certain parts of the day, the new management has decided to play all formats all the time. You can hear a country song followed by rap followed by alternative grunge music followed by classic rock followed by John Denver and so on... So I pretty much don't listen at all anymore because it just annoys me.

This afternoon, I was waiting for the kids to get out of school. It is in the 20s today so I hunkered down in the car to wait. I flipped to the local Japanese station just to see what was playing. Usually they play orchestra music or strange sounding old Japanese music. Today I was surprised to hear Randy Travis belting out a song. After Randy, they played some Dwight Yoakam. When the song was over the DJ announced what had played in clear English. How fun! Then she and what sounded like four other DJs proceeded to discuss the songs in Japanese. There were lots of "ahhhhh so-so-so-so" noises as well as "hmmmm's". I wonder what kind of culture Randy Travis-san and Dwight Yoakam-san and songs like Guitars and Cadillacs bring to the local Japanese listeners!

At any rate, it was a fun surprise and I enjoyed it while it lasted. Please remember to be grateful for the large numbers of radio stations available to you! I will be spinning the dial like crazy when we get home!

Love,

4Vs