h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Wasssuuuup yourself. Thanks for dropping by, and reading my Yuming entry, and for the virtual cake. I was beginning to think I'd picked something waaay inappropriate to write about , but it seems a couple of people like it.

Japan has a great tradition of ghost stories and the supernatural; its a pity the Supernatural World project is wrapped up, it might have been nice to contribute something with a less familiar angle.

BTW, there's a wierd HTML/GuideML problem with your page. With Netscape 6 for Mac the whole text is one big link to your Phantom hounds page (and I mean the _whole_ text, down to "Tragically, my pride and joy entry on the Phantom Hounds", i.e. the link itself). Its fine in Mac Explorer 5, Win32 Explorer 4, and Linux Netscape 4, so I guess its a browser problem, but it might be worth bugging a Guru about.

Ah-ha. I'll see if I can sort that problem out. Tsk! The internet...

As for your entry, there's no such thing as inappropriate. Well, if you wrote an entry about how much you hate some cultural minority, filled with foul language and insults directed towards various organised religions then you would probably get a certain amount of negative feedback. But as for genuine reference topics there's no limit to what you can do. Just look at some of my entries! Once again, I don't wish to interfere with your induction, but there are pages you can look at that explain this sort of thing. You should be contacted by an ACE soon, if you haven't been already - they'll help you.

Speaking of Japanese ghosts, why don't you write an entry about them yourself? I'd be really interested to find out about them...

I got contacted by both an Angel and an ACE within minutes of first logging on. It was quite impressive really

I was thinking about what I might put into a "Japanese ghosts" entry; but I've realised my knowledge of the topic is very patchy, so it may take me a while to research and I'm not yet sure how I'd turn the various bits I know into a coherent article ... might get some ideas down in a journal entry later. Try and stop by and let me know what you think in a couple of days if you have time.

OK. Got some ideas together at http://www.h2g2.com/F58420?thread=89546 Let me know what you think (if you can make sense of it, that is).

Well, it's a good start. I've heard of a few of those creatures myself. If you aren't writing solely about ghosts perhaps you could call the entry 'Creatures in Japanese Myth' or 'Japanese Beings of Legend' or something like that. Of course, if you end up with pages and pages of information it may be better to split it up into a couple of smaller entries...

I would suggest that you research each creature/ghost/topic individually - on the Internet and from books. I'll add to your journal entry on the subject with a few bits and peices on the creatures I know about in a few days time.

Hi Jamie, I appreciate the input. Thanks.

At the moment I've been using a couple of thesauri to try and expand the list of beasties, which is working OK-ish. I have quite a lot of print references around, so I'm trying them first. I tried a web hunt briefly, but the material I found so far is really patchy. I get the feeling there isn't going to be a definitive on-line reference on these things, but its early days yet. Someone must have written something.

I did find some nice artwork of some of the goody-goody supernatural beings though in a new-years clip book I had lying around Its at [url removed by moderator]while I thiink of something useful to do with it.

Hey again Jamie, I got some interest from another researcher too (Dave: http://www.h2g2.com/U153390 ), so I've tentatively decided to try and start a proper University project on it, and I'm trying to work out how to split the entries down. I notice you did a whole entry on the Flying Dutchman; I think we may find there are one of two topics worthy of individual cover as the project develops. Anyway, I'm sure you're pretty tied up on your Thought project (not to mention researching Jake and Elwood B-) ), but I hope if the project gets off the ground you can be a contributing researcher even if you can't take on a whole article? The draft project entry is at http://www.h2g2.com/A481259 , but we're discussing stuff in my journal thread http://www.h2g2.com/F58420?thread=89546 for now, so I can delete/change the project page without losing its linked conversations. Since you've been through the University field research business before I hope you can give me some advice on that too!