Or ... Why I was happy to see an NHK Sticker in the wild

If you've read Haruki Murakami's 1Q84 (and if you haven’t you should), then you know about NHK stickers.

NHK is Japan's public broadcasting network, and the NHK sticker is placed above the door (or elsewhere near the door, maybe) of a residence to prove that the household has paid its NHK fee, saving them from the ire of NHK fee collectors, which, at least in 1Q84, can be quite relentless.

I'd been glancing at the plaque above our Tokyo apartment for two days before I realized that we, in fact, had an NHK sticker. This made me terribly excited.

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