世論 What Japan Thinks

DIMSDRIVE performed internet-based research involving 5,274 people in September of last year to find out which country’s citizens would people most want to marry. It is not stated whether or not the people interviewed were single or not.

The Asia versus the West split is quite noticeable in the men, but really striking amongst the women. I previously translated statistics regarding international marriages in Japan that shows that the ideals being expressed here do not seem to be realised.

On a slight tangent, I watched the last episode of an NHK English learning program which features an English-speaking Western blonde angel that prods a clueless office worker along the path to success at her job getting a date with her transferred from New York colleague, the ideal tall, muscular, tanned, well-coiffured white executive. The angel’s job was done because the glaikit Misaki finally pulled her man.

Research results

Q: Other than Japanese, which country’s people do you think would be good to have as a partner (husband or wife)? (Sample size=5,274, free answer)

Rank		Votes
1	USA	1,144
2	Korea	505
3	UK	442
4	Italy	370
5	France	344
6	Australia	218
7	Germany	203
8	China	197
9	Canada	150
10	Russia	120

Q: Other than Japanese, which country’s people do you think would be good to have as a partner (husband or wife)? (By sex, free answer)

Rank	Male N=2,468	Votes	Rank	Female N=2,806	Votes
1	USA	368	1	USA	776
2	Korea	297	2	UK	347
3	China	174	3	Italy	278
4	France	134	4	France	210
5	Russia	117	5	Korea	208
6	Thailand	99	6	Australia	145
7	UK	95	7	Germany	131
8	Italy	92	8	Canada	99
9=	Taiwan	73	9	Switzerland	47
9=	Australia	73	10	Spain	34

First, looking at the East-West split - or more accurately, perhaps, the caucasian-Asian split (I’m not aware of any black Western role-models in Japan) we see that for men, 36% of the total votes were for Western wives versus 26% for Asian women, favouring the West (I’m including Russia, with Maria Sharapova as the popular image of the country) by just over a third. However for women there is a marked difference; about 74% in total choose the West (over 40% for the USA alone) versus a mere 7.4% for the East, a massive ten to one vote for Europe and the USA.

Next, looking at the detailed age breakdown, it’s only in the teenage girls group that the USA fails to top the charts, losing out to France and Korea, and equal with the UK. For men in their twenties, American women are preferred over the second-placed Korean women by almost 60%, and the Chinese are back in fifth, gaining just over a third of the number of votes of the USA. However, the older men get, the stronger the charms of the Asian neighbours become, with the gap at its smallest being just a mere three votes. Similarly, for men in their forties and over, Chinese women cut the gap from a third to about a half of the USA score.

For women, as they get older (ignoring the over sixty bracket which has a very small sample size, so may be rather inaccurate) the attraction to American men only get stronger; in their twenties, Americans get just under a quarter of the vote, but by their fifties, it surpasses three in ten. Despite the charms of the disturbingly Harry Potter-like Bae Yong Joon Korean men do not seem to be particularly favoured by the middle-aged demographic.

These two main trends noted above are perhaps reflections on Japanese society as much as on foreign stereotypes. The younger men hold images of themselves as charming the sophisticated Western woman, but as they age (and visit dodgy hostess bars…) they come to realise that perhaps only Asian women could accept their typical Japanese behaviour. For women, after having been around Japanese men for many, many years, they too may come to realise that the Western stereotypes of politeness and chivalry are the only things that could satisty them in marriage.

Bonus points if you can name the people pictured…