Why I want every Japan-related blogger to blogroll NihonHacks, right now! - an exclusive interview with NihonHacks.com

On November 24, 2007 in Interviews, bloggers

I am 100% serious. If you blog about Japan I want you to stop what you are doing, go over to your blog and add NihonHacks to your blogroll. Now pat yourself on the back because you’ve just done a great service to foreigners throughout Japan.

I was tempted to stop the post there for dramatic effect, but it is an interview after all! So let’s hear from the man himself, Thomas from NihonHacks.com.

Daily J: What is Nihon Hacks’ mission/purpose and how do you see it developing/changing in the future?

Thomas: The tagline for Nihon Hacks is “Time- and money-saving tips for easy living in Japan.” The purpose of the site is to share day-to-day life tips with other foreigners living in Japan. I want to answer questions like “How do I go about doing <something>?”, “Is there an easier/faster/cheaper way to do such-and-such?”, “How do I find <something> in Japan?”, “What’s a good way to avoid/fix <some problem>?” Some things I’ve written about on Nihon Hacks are how to avoid wasting old rice, saving on cleaning products, cheap steaks, and how to find cheese in Japan.

As for how I’d like to see the site develop, I’d really like to have something similar to what parenthacks.com has right now. They have a big, active community of readers who send in parenting tips everyday to share with all the other parents reading the blog. Because it’s so active, you get to see a lot of different approaches to common parenting problems and issues. It would be awesome if nihonhacks.com could get that level of participation. I’d be thrilled to have my inbox flooded with tips from readers who want to share their discoveries with other readers.

Right now, I think most of us learn our tricks from our personal circle of gaijin/native-friends. It’d be cool to have that circle expand to be Japan-wide. There are a lot of great solutions to everyday problems out there. If we can collect them all in one place I think a lot of people would benefit. The small group of readers I’ve gathered over the past two months has been really generous in sharing their tips. I’ve learned so much from them already. So the potential is there. All that is needed now is the numbers. That’s the dream anyway.

Do you see why I told you to blogroll him now?! I know why I did.

I blogrolled him because I know that his site is going to help foreigners in Japan (and already is). But I don’t want to just stop there, I plan to personally contribute to all of the great work that NihonHacks is doing. Like I have said before, I believe that as J-bloggers we have a responsibility to help Japan-enthusiasts… because with great blogging comes great responsibility.

So how can we help NihonHacks help foreigners?

Find out tomorrow,

here on Daily J

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