ears on fire

I went to listen to some Japanese radio online at NHK this evening. There were three options listed at the top of the “Listen Online” box - regular, slow, fast. Skipping over the small print as I do when I read Japanese websites, I picked “fast” because my internet connection is fast and can handle high speed streaming. When the media player turned on, however, it sounded like little Japanese chipmunks were arguing in my speakers. Going back to the original page, I read the line of text above the earlier noted options: “Please choose your playback speed.” It seems that there are enough Japanese people who do not have time to listen to the radio at normal speeds to warrent the inclusion of “chipmonk on caffeine,” and enough foreigners who cannot understand everyday speech to warrent “super slow motion” radio.