guilty pleasures

American Idol! For sheer brain-deadness, nothing beats watching a bunch of 20-year olds try to "interpret" Beatles songs they've never heard before. Luckily they show each episode at least 3 times here so I never have to miss it.

There's also magical sinetron, a type of Indonesian sci-fi in which snake-demons and other evil spirits seduce humans into wicked behavior. There's often a climactic battle in the sky between snakes, scorpions, alligators, etc., featuring super-cheezy special effects. Then an Islamic wise man comes in and vanquishes the demons with verses from the Koran. Good clean fun! And I don't have to feel guilty because I'm "practicing my Indonesian."

Trish in Jakarta

Comment

Note: All comments are moderated. Keep your comment to under 200 words and abide by NHPR’s comment guidelines while posting.

The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.
  • Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.
  • Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd> <i> <b>
  • Lines and paragraphs break automatically.

More information about formatting options

NPR News