Every year, for about a week in February, Chile becomes obsessed with this music festival in Viña del Mar. Everyone talks about it. It's on every television screen, every night. Proportionally, it's probably equal to the combined popularity of the Olympics and American Idol in the US (interestingly the Olympics are on and no one seems to care/watch). And from what I've seen (at least one act the last four nights) it's terrible. Allowing for the fact that I didn't grow up with these singers, the majority are just not very good at singing. And don't even get me started on the comedy acts. They may as well be speaking Lao. And yet, everyone watches like it's the most exciting television event of the year. Here's indicative conversation of how very strange this phenomenon is for me:
Me: Did he just say "like a penguin in the bed?"
My Roommate: Yes. (Like it was obvious, like everyone has known that lyric all their lives, like lovers and penguins have clear similarities.)
Unfortunately it is not just the music festival of Viña. All of Chilean television is more or less an enigma. We changed the channel after the festival programingand the current show is a bizarre hybrid of Jeopardy and strip poker.
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