新闻万花筒：挪威一档关于“烧柴”的电视秀点燃了人民的热情【上海学生英文报】

My Fireplace Rules

In late February, a Norwegian TV program was aired on NRK (挪威国家广播公司). Based on the topic of firewood, it consisted mostly of people chatting and chopping in the woods and then eight hours of a fire burning in afireplace. Yet no sooner had it begun, nearly one million people, or 20 percent of the population, tuned in (收看) at some point to the program. Then, angry responses came pouring in.

“We received about 60 text messages from people complaining about the stacking (堆砌) in the program,” said Lars Mytting, a best sellerauthor whose book had inspired the program. “Fifty per cent complained that the bark (树皮) was facing up, and the rest complained that the bark was facing down,” he said. “One thing that really divides Norway is bark,” he added jokingly.

However, one thing that does not divide Norway, apparently, is its love of discussing Norwegian wood.

In a country where 1.2 million households have fireplaces or wood stoves, said Rune Moeklebust, NRK’s head of programs in the west coastal city of Bergen (卑而根), the subject naturally lends itself to television. “My first thought was, ‘Well, why not make a TV seriesa bout firewood?’” Moeklebust said.

National Firewood Night, as the program was called, opened with the host, Rebecca Nedregotten Strand, promising to “try to get to the core of Norwegian firewood culture—because firewood is the foundation of our lives.”

Derek Miller, author of the novel Norwegianby Night, said the broadcast appealed to Norwegians’ nostalgia (怀旧情怀) for a simpler time as well as demonstrating the importance of firewood in their lives.

“The sense of creating warmth, both symbolically and literally, to share conversation, to share food, to share silence, is essential to the Norwegian identity,” he said in an interview.