[atgm]

I live in Japan and have the same problem, to some extent. News coming out of America is largely negative. But then again, news in general is largely negative -- negative sells. It's not just how we rate things, but also what people choose to report.

When I want to sigh and get depressed about America, I look at the news that I see about Japan and that reminds me that people only really want to report/read about the worst/weirdest of a country, really. Japan isn't all herbivorous otaku, whale killers, and child molesters. America isn't all idiocracy, TSA gropers, and embezzlers.

Another way to look at it is that every single American startup post or Ask HN you see here is a positive post -- these are people trying to live the American dream and pull themselves up by their bootstraps. Idealized? Maybe. But it's certainly not negative.