世論 What Japan Thinks

MyVoice carried out a survey of its community at the start of this month to see what they thought about self-service (counter service only) coffee shops. 16,311 people, 46% male, completed their internet questionnaire. 3% were teenagers, 24% in their twenties, 37% in their thirties, 24% in their forties, and 12% fifty years old or over.

Japan is apparently the only country in the world (sorry, I can’t find a definite statement of the statistics) where the Coca-Cola Company make more money (or sell more by volume, or something) with a drink other than their signature fizzy brown bevarage, namely their line of Georgia canned coffee, which are, on the whole, either over-sugary, over-milky (a friend got kidney stones from drinking six or eight cans a day and hardly any other liquids, bar beer) or over-bitter for my taste.

Also note that in Japan there is little tradition of carrying out a cup of coffee from a shop. Even around Starbucks, almost no-one will drink their coffee anywhere bar the shop; I personally can only recall one time seeing a Japanese person carrying a coffee cup onto a train, for instance.

Finally, most coffee shops are still smoking. Starbucks is non-smoking throughout (except for seating outside, if available), but other chains often have perhaps only have a quarter or less reserved for non-smokers, and little effective segregation. However, note the last question, about why people like their particular favourite chain - only 9.5% choose smoking segregation (all non-smoking was not an option) as a plus, at most just a fifth of the Starbucks fans, versus 9% who choose that smoking is allowed, which is again just about a fifth of those with a favourite other than Starbucks.

I seem to have written far too much about Starbucks already! I’m much more a tea and table service man myself.
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japan.internet.com released a short survey, carried out at the start of February in conjunction with goo Research to find out about how people use web mail services. This is the tenth time they have performed this survey, once every month since May 2005. 1,090 people, 46.8% male, from up and down the country completed the internet-based questionnaire. 2.1% were teenagers, 22.5% were in their twenties, 40.6% were in their thirties, 24.3% were in their forties, 7.4% in their fifties, and just 3.0% aged sixty or over.

Given that according to another survey, one in five Japanese has tried dating sites, I find that only 2% have used a web mail address for this purpose suprising. Perhaps the rest used their mobile phones or an alternative form of aliasing; my main provider, for instance, offers up to five aliases, selectable from not just standard @isp.ne.jp, but vanity ones like @teabreak.jp. Or perhaps people just lied more here!

Note that when the provider usage statistics below are compared to an earlier survey on brand image, goo performs better here than its brand image suggests, and Hotmail worse.
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Recently MyVoice performed a timely survey on aspects of hay fever, interviewing 16,259 people, 54% female, by means of a survey of their internet monitor group. In the sample there were 3% teenagers, 23% in their twenties, 38% in their thirties, 24% in their forties, and 12% in their fifties.

The largest cause of hay fever in Japan is cedar trees, but luckily I am mostly resistant to that, although back in the UK I used to have pretty serious problems with rapeseed (canola) pollen.

In question six there appears 甜茶, tencha, which is apparently some kind of rose-based Chinese herbal tea that I had never heard of, yet over one in five Japanese sufferers drink to alleviate their symptoms.

Another quite popular curative, 凍頂烏龍茶, touchou oolong tea (which has a different Chinese pronounciation, but I can’t find a reference to it) is served hot at one of my favourite restaurants, and it really is a very relaxing digestive after a big meal, but I know nothing about any presumed rhinitis-related benefits!

Q1: Do you suffer from hay fever? (Sample size=16,259)

Yes, serious hay fever	12.0%
Yes, mild hay fever	26.5%
Used to have it but not now	8.5%
Never had hay fever	43.0%
Don’t know what hay fever is	10.1%

Q2: When did you first become aware of having hay fever? (Sample size=either 6,259 or 7,641 approximately, hay fever sufferers)

This year	0.4%
Last year	8.2%
Two or three years ago	17.5%
Four or five years ago	17.2%
Six to ten years ago	17.0%
Over ten years ago	32.1%
Can’t remember	7.0%
No answer	0.7%

Note that since this survey took place at the start of February, before the pollen season properly starts, the number of new sufferers for this year would naturally be very low. However, the 8.2% breaking out last year is a bit of a worrying figure.

Q3: Where or what do you consult for information regarding hay fever? (Sample size=either 6,259 or 7,641 approximately, hay fever sufferers, multiple answer)

Television programs	78.2%
Internet	42.9%
Newspaper column	34.5%
Doctor or pharmacy	33.7%
Word-of-mouth from friends	30.9%
Magazine column	16.4%
Radio program	5.2%
Specialist books	3.1%
Other	2.9%
No answer	1.1%

Q4: What hay fever symptoms are you afflicted by? (Sample size=either 6,259 or 7,641 approximately, hay fever sufferers, multiple answer)

Runny nose	83.3%
Itchy eyes	80.4%
Sneezing	66.9%
Stuffed nose	54.2%
Wooly head	34.3%
Bloodshot eyes	30.1%
Sore throat	19.4%
Sore eyes	16.6%
Headache	14.8%
Itchy all over	10.7%
Coughing	10.4%
Other	2.9%
No answer	1.4%

Q5: What measures do you take to avoid or reduce hay fever symptoms? (Sample size=either 6,259 or 7,641 approximately, hay fever sufferers, multiple answer)

Over-the-counter eyewash, eyedrops	42.0%
Mask	39.7%
Prescription medicine	36.4%
Sweets or gum	31.5%
Over-the-counter internal medicines	28.9%
Over-the-counter nasal sprays or drops	24.8%
Anti-hay fever food and drink	20.5%
Air filter	19.8%
Over-the-counter gargle solution	10.9%
Glasses or goggles	8.5%
Lotion-impregnated tissues	7.7%
Aromatherapy	3.2%
Clothes drier	3.0%
Other over-the-counter medicine	1.9%
Laser treatment	0.7%
Other	3.1%
Don’t use anything in particular	9.8%
No answer	1.3%

Q6: What food or drink do you take to avoid or reduce hay fever symptoms? (Sample size=either 6,259 or 7,641 approximately, hay fever sufferers, multiple answer)

Yogurt or other lactic acid drinks	27.3%
Tencha	22.7%
Sweets or gum	17.4%
Natto	10.3%
Herb tea	7.7%
Shiso leaves, seeds or juice	7.7%
Green vegetables	5.5%
凍頂烏龍茶 Touchou oolong tea	5.1%
Other teas not specifically mentioned	4.8%
Anti-hay fever cool drinks	4.7%
Moromi or apple vinegar, etc	4.2%
Aojiru	3.0%
Guava tea	3.0%
Blue fish	2.4%
Benifuuki tea	1.0%
Tomato skins	1.0%
Other	2.5%
Nothing in particular	41.2%
No answer	2.1%

I got the following message through another mailing list, so I’ll pass this on to anyone interested out there.

There is a questionnaire that has been authored by Katrin Kalb, a German Master Thesis student of Sophia University. The results of the thesis will be made available to the Japan National Tourist Organization (JNTO) to improve travel and tourism in Japan.

This is YOUR chance to make a difference for future travellers (including you) Make your observations and concerns heard. For a meaningful statistical evaluation, the student needs at least 300 responses, so please help by filling it out (will take 10 minutes) and forward it to people who you think can answer the questions.

Unfortunately the group of people being questioned is somewhat limited: western foreigners living for duration of at least 7 months in Japan (where at least three months should have been passed when completing the
questionnaire). You, or your partner should have a salaried (that is stable) income.

http://www.befrager.de/befragung.aspx?projekt=306

The URL is German, but the questionnaire is in English.

Note that there is also a German version of the questionnaire available. There does seem to be a small prize draw if you leave your email address after completing the survey.

japan.internet.com, in conjunction with JR Tokai Express Research, carried out an internet-based survey of 330 people employed by national and local government, and by private enterprises to find out how well they knew various English computer-related buzzwords and acronyms. The sample was 72.7% male, with 23.0% in their twenties, 42.7% in their thirties, 24.8% in their forties, 9.1% in their fifties, and just 0.3% aged sixty or over. Note that those interviewed are not necessarily IT specialists, or even IT users, in their workplace.

Note that the questions are testing to see how confident the respondents are in their knowledge, not if they are correct or not. I do remember one incident at work regarding the GPL (actually, I remember lots of incidents with lots of technical terms) where one senior person was holding forth at length and with great confidence about a certain aspect of it but was, in fact, talking utter cobblers.

I’m rather surprised at FTTH scoring almost double of RSS and SNS, though. As far as I am aware, FTTH is rarely used in advertising for high-speed home internet access; it is usually just fibre-optic (光ファイバー, hikari faiba-) or NTT’s trademark B-FLET’S (B for Broadband, F for “flat rates, friendly Internet access, and a flexible environment”, and “Let’s” for “Let’s IP Service”).

How well do you do in knowing these terms?
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japan.internet.com, in conjunction with goo Research, carried out another of their short surveys, this time regarding what first sprung to mind when thinking about web services. They interviewed 1,036 people, 57.9% female, by means of an internet questionnaire. 2.7% of the respondents were teenagers, 23.0% were in their twenties, 42.3% in their thirties, 22.7% in their forties, 7.3% in their fifties, and 2.0% in their sixties.

Whereas an earlier survey looked at primarily how brand image is conveyed via advertising, these web services are perhaps not sold as heavily through conventional advertising channels, but instead make their mark by some combination of word of mouth, familiarity and accessibility.

The mere one percent naming Gmail as the first mail provider to come to mind seems very surprising to me, although I wonder if Google has been targetting that service towards the English-speaking demographic at the expensive of foreign language speakers? How does the Gmail brand image rank in other countries, including at home in the USA? Does anyone know?

One nice thing, however, about Gmail being below the Japanese radar is that our office’s firewall does not block it (yet…), unlike Hotmail, Yahoo! web mail (Japan but not the UK) and the other big providers. Not that I check personal mail at work; no no no, not me at all.

In addition, Gmail is still invitation-only, but that hasn’t stopped SNS services spreading widely amongst the Japanese. By the way, if anyone out there would like a Gmail invitation, I have lots to give away!
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japan.internet.com, in conjuction with JR Tokai Express Research, conducted a survey to find out where businesspeople obtained their information from. 331 people from all over the country were questioned, with 73.4% of the sample male. 21.5% were in their twenties, 42.3% in their thirties, 27.2% in their forties and 9.1% in their fifties. The survey was most likely conducted via a private internet poll, although this is not clearly mentioned.

I’m surprised that almost nine in ten regularly visit a portal, yet not even half visit a search engine, just scarcely beating the number who visit route-finding web sites, although I suppose it means that a good number of people do their searching directly from the portal.
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At the start of February MyVoice performed a survey of their internet monitor group to find out what people thought about learning English. 16,057 people, 46% male, completed an internet-based questionnaire. 3% of the respondents were teenagers, 23% were in their twenties, 37% in their thirties, 25% in their forties, and 12% in their fifties.

Teaching English is a huge business in Japan. Actually, I would argue that it is not learning English, it’s being seen to be learning, or just the buzz of hanging around foreigners that is popular here. One of my wife’s pals, for instance, has been going to various classes and homestays for at least ten years, yet her English is still barely useable; she just seems to be feeding her fantasy of getting a gaijin boyfriend.

I’m also a bit surprised that amongst three in four reckon that English lessons should start before the end of primary education. Although the earlier one starts learning a language the better, on the whole, there are more foreign languages than just English!
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iSHARE recently surveyed the memberrs of CLUB BBQ to see what their opinions on various issues surrounding mobile phones were, but the only results they posted in this news release were regarding electronic money and phone features. 718 people, 72% male replied to the private internet questionnaire carried out, according to the article, over two days at the end of February this year, but I presume this is a typo for January.

Note that CLUB BBQ is a free mail service that in return for free usage the members must regularly fill out surveys. It’s interesting that for this survey, and many others that iSHARE have performed, the men outnumber women two to one, whereas most other internet monitor-based surveys are around 60% female, perhaps indicating the CLUB BBQ is a more male-oriented site; judging by the various anime characters around the iSHARE web site I would say that this would seem to be true. This might suggest that the average CLUB BBQ user may very well be a heavier user of technology.
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Looking at my server logs, I see one of the search phrases I got a hit from on Valentine’s Day was “when wife does not love you”. Fair put a damper on my day, that did.

I’ve also decided that I’m not too proud to put out the begging bowl, so I’ve added a wee donations button from PayPal up in the top-right, should you ever have the urge to slip me a few quid; my favoured currency is UK pounds sterling, but of course I’ll accept anything! Anyone contributing will be doing so as a donation, expecting nothing in return (so don’t come complaining if you don’t get anything), but depending on how much you might decide to push my way and how I am feeling I will endeavour to return a small token or favour that may vary from just a @whatjapanthinks.com mail address to a trinket; perhaps just a used railway pass card (not the one pictured, however!) for small contributions to something like a mobile phone strap or other small souvenir item for larger givers. In addition, a back-link to any donors may also be added for some unspecified length of time, subject to arbitrary selection criteria such as no links to spam, splogs, pr0n or other categories of web page that I might not care to link to. I reserve the right to withhold any or all of the above offers, and even the right to return any money that I judge to have been offered in bad faith or outwith the accepted meaning of a donation.

Sorry for the rather harsh-sounding words at the end there, but I suppose I should cover all bases up front as spammers are rather resourceful these days. I’ve also added this text to my “About” page.

Oh, and a question to you the reader - has my web site been unreachable at times over this weekend? Traffic has dropped off quite a bit, and I’ve had problems logging onto the site myself.

Finally, I had an email from the author of MKT’s diary and life in Japan, asking for a link, so here we go. I’ve not had time to read his blog on Japan by a Japanese, but please feel free to visit.