News You Can Eat

Every evening I like to reminisce about my glamorous career in TV news by watching Taiwan's national newscast. Not that I understand much, but it's fun to watch. The anchors are attractive and professional. The production values are pretty good. But what I enjoy most is the subject matter.

This is a peaceful country. Taiwan isn't at war. Guns are outlawed so there's not much violent crime. Politics can get ugly but its mostly over my head. Just like the rest of the world, they enjoy a good celebrity scandal in Taiwan, but those usually don't take up much of the evening news.

So Taiwanese news producers stack their shows with stories about things anyone can relate to...like food. I'll bet at least 15 minutes in every news broadcast is devoted to things that are grown, caught, cooked or eaten here. Tonight there was an in-depth report about German pork producers promoting the consumption of pigs' feet in Taipei. That's sort of like encouraging Southerners to eat barbecue or Eskimos to eat whale blubber... totally unnecessary.

Watch this story on the CTS website to see a man eating a hamburger (or something) the size of his head. Later in the same story we see close ups of meat being sliced, a pastoral scene of farm animals (goats, I think) and school kids being served lunch. I have no idea what it all means, but it's fairly typical of what you'll see in any newscast here. Enjoy...and would you pass the soy sauce?