One of the better Japanese reality shows in the first decade of the new millennium was TV Tokyo's "Inaka ni Tomaro" ("Let's Visit the Countryside"), which premiered in 2003. Ostensibly a travelogue, it featured second-tier celebrities who were dispatched to rural areas where they had to secure a night's lodging in private homes. Supposedly, there were no setups. The celebrity had to approach strangers on the street and ask if they could stay the night. Normally, the people they met recognized the celebrity, but, depending on when that person's heyday was and the age of the interlocutor, sometimes they didn't. And even if they did know the celebrity, it didn't always mean they wanted them in their house, so the negotiations were always awkward. I remember one show where it took the guest 10 tries before he secured a bed.

TV Tokyo specializes in travel shows because they are relatively cheap to produce and TV Tokyo is apparently stingy. By the same token, the network has always come up with imaginative twists to the format. "Inaka ni Tomaro," which was canceled in 2010, was TV Tokyo's version of NHK's "Tsurube no Kazoku ni Kanpai" ("Tsurube Toasts Families"), which is still on the air. Rakugo storyteller Shofukutei Tsurube and a guest celebrity travel to towns and villages and chat to people on the fly, getting themselves invited to homes to meet these people's families. Tsurube and his guests are major celebrities and don't spend the night, so it's easy for them to gain access to people's lives, which is the main point of "Tsurube no Kazoku ni Kanpai," "Inaka ni Tomaro" and their copycats: getting to know the inhabitants of a specific region rather than just eating the food or seeing the sights.

It was inevitable that this strategy would be adapted for overseas situations and, about 10 years ago, "Tsurube" started bringing its cast and crew to foreign countries. Of course, the people they meet don't know Tsurube from Adam, so they don't have as easy a time of it. For the Aug. 13 episode, they went to Rotterdam, and two of the local families they visited were accessed through members who either were Japanese or spoke the language.