James you're just coming up against the issue I discussed in this thread
http://www.japanforum.com/forum/gene...ighlight=hater
You have to love everything here or you immediately get labelled as a 'hater' or 'racist'. masaegu especially cannot abide any foreigner on this forum having any opinion about this country or it's people that is not completely flattering without getting rather upset and start pigeonholing you as someone who just dosen't know enough Japanese language or culture to have any valid opinion. As though having an opinion based on our own western experiences holds no validity whatsoever because it's somehow wrong to use our own experiences and background to make any comparisons with the society here (how you cannot do that is quite beyond me). Your opinions are exactly that, your opinons, and you don't have to feel bad about them regardless of how others see them. We don't have to change the way we feel about things in this country just because a select few on these forums can't accept any criticisms of the place.