Some people have criticised me for being too negative in my comments about Japan. I rather disagree with that. I see my contributions as fairly balanced, being neither a Japanophile nor a Japanophobe, but someone with a love-hate relationship with Japan.

I counted the threads I have started about Japan (i.e. not about the forum administration or in the Member Lounge) on the forum. Here are the numbers by category :

All Things Japanese : 29 threads
Culture Shock : 37 threads
History & Traditions : 26
Religion in Japan : 5
Literature & Arts : 6
Japanese Food & Recipes : 6
Personal Stories : 0

Japanese News & Hot Topics (15 subforums) : 192

Japan Practical (3 subforums) : 21

Entertainment (10 subforums) : 11

Japan on the Web : 8

Nihongo Forum (10 subforums) : 28

TOTAL : 368 threads


The last person to criticise me for being too negative is Hachiro today. In my reply to him, I pointed out that most of my threads were positive, neutral or informative (stats, news...), and that the truely critical or negative threads were mostly confined to the Culture Shock (obvisouly, otherwise it wouldn't be called that), History and Politics section (because 20th-century Japanese history on its repurcusion on contemporary politics is no rose garden, and this is completely independent from my good-will or behaviour).

Otherwise, on the whole, I think I have contributed in starting more positive and informative topics than almost anyone on the forum, except maybe Thomas (and that was mostly in the early days of the forum).