As the Olympics continues to set record-high TV viewing numbers in China, the Chinese government worries the event is turning citizens into armchair olympians, couch potatoes, lazy bastards, or whatever you’d like to call us.
Chinese media has even given its army of TV Olympic spectators a name — otaku — a Japanese word that means “venerable house” and usually refers to someone nerdy who is totally devoted to a hobby to the point of not leaving home.
Venerable House. A genteel name for us. Read more here.
This article appears in Aug 14-20, 2008.
