Politics vs. Pop Culture = what's stronger?

I met up with my Japanese friend Tomoko the other day. She's here in Manila for 3 weeks to do research for her thesis. After her graduation in January, she'll start work in April. It's wonderful to see her again, and we had a nice conversation over lunch. I ranted to her about our government, and she tried to comfort me by assuring me that they had their own problems in Japan.

Uh yeah. Japan = Philippines?

I'm not trying to trivialize Japan's issues and magnifying ours, but....(ok, words fail me here)

I guess the principle to apply in this kind of situation is that people live their reality. I'm sure if I were Japanese, their issues would be problematic to me as well. So they don't have starving people and their percentage of corrupt politicians is small compared to ours, but I forget that Japan was an island of bombed devastation more than half a century ago, so they do know the meaning of hardship.

Anyway, we moved on to less serious stuff to lighten the mood. We talked about Paris Hilton. I asked her why the heck are Japanese girls crazy over that woman, and she shamefully answered she had absolutely no idea. She dislikes Hilton herself. She said that she didn't have friends who liked Paris, and she probably wouldn't have the same interests with a person who likes her.
Good ol' Paris. After the talk of Japan's and the Philippine's great divide, Hilton managed to bridge the gap over a shared disgust and disbelief over her triviality and fame. Pop culture rules and makes the world smaller and smaller!