Japanese Find a Forum to Vent Most-Secret Feelings
By NORIMITSU ONISHI
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/09/international/asia/09toky.html?ex=1399435200&en=c8bb27cc740761e0&ei=5007&partner=USERLANタソ Published: May 9, 2004
(写真)Hiroyuki Nishimura founded Channel 2 after returning
from a year's study in Arkansas. The Web site gets 5.4
million visitors a month, mostly disgruntled Japanese who
want to give the world a piece of their mind.
TOKYO, May 8 - In a society in which subtlety is prized above
all, face-to-face confrontation is avoided, insults can be
leveled with verbal nuances and hidden meanings are found
everywhere, there is one place where the Japanese go to bare
their souls and engage in verbal combat: Channel 2.
It is Japan's largest Internet bulletin board - the place
where disgruntled employees leak information about their
companies, journalists include tidbits they cannot get into
the mainstream news media and the average salaryman attacks
with ferocity and language unacceptable in daily life. It is
also the place where gays come out in a society in which they
mostly remain in the closet, where users freely broach taboo
subjects, or where people go to the heart of the matter and
ask, "What's for dinner?"
About 5.4 million people come to Channel 2 each month
(
http://www.2ch.net), many of them several times a day.
Founded in 1999, "ni-channeru," as it is called here, has
become part of Japan's everyday culture as no other Web site
has.
(以下略)