Round-up of a couple of English-language surveys
I saw two surveys recently that perhaps didn’t get as much press as they should have, so this is my attempt to redress the balance. The two subjects were comparing the expectations of Koreans and Japanese for the 2006 FIFA World Cup™, and the perception of body image and beauty amongst asian women (found via 3Yen).
First, football. According to a survey carried out by the Japan Research Centre and Gallup in South Korea and published on May 12th, 64% of South Koreans expected Japan would not get past the first stage, versus 12% of Japanese who thought the same of the Korean team. Korea do have an easier group; Togo should be easier than Australia, and France and Switzerland are perhaps not as tough as Brazil and Croatia, although Brazil do have a habit of starting slowly. However, I strongly suspect that the majority of Koreans are not using logic but emotion to do down their neighbour.
For their own teams, for South Koreans the most popular choice at 42% was that they’d reach the last four, whereas the most popular choice for the Japanese at just 27% was for a last 16 position. 20% of Japanese thought Japan wouldn’t even get past the first round.
51% of Japanese, versus 93% of South Koreans, said they were interested in the World Cup.
Next, beauty. The survey does make rather depressing reading, with Japanese women having the most poor image of themselves in just about every category.
How long has it been since these women have felt beautiful? Some countries fared far worse than others. Two-thirds of Japanese women (66%), and half the Singaporean women (49%) said it had been since last year or longer that they had felt beautiful. Indeed, in Japan, a large number said they have never felt beautiful or could not remember feeling beautiful (42% total combined).
[…]
Again, the Japanese bucked the trend with half saying it had been since at least last year since anyone told them they were beautiful which showed up in low feelings of one’s own beauty.
In addition, 25% of Japanese thought they were too heavy, with another 44% rating themselves as slightly heavy, which are laughable figures to anyone who has ever spent any time here.
However, the one statistic that really took me aback was given the statement “Media and advertising tends to portray women in very cliché and shallow ways”, only 25% of Japanese women agreed with the statement (see text for full explanation of the figure), 20 percentage points lower than the next lowest country.
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Read more on: beauty,football,gallup,japan research centre,korea
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Kurt said,
June 2, 2006 @ 00:47
re: the beauty survey….not surprising in the least, but as you say, depressing all the same. The survey at the Dove Philipines site is full of interesting, fascinating information. One could really mine this for a lot of interesting insights. With respect to the only 25% of Japanese women who agreed with the statement about media’s cliched portrayal of women, perhaps more interesting, given how much Japan and Korea women seem to be in sync in the survey, was that in Korea, for the same statement, 82% agreed, the highest among Asian women. The survey is from Dove, which has been doing a lot of work (or marketing ;)) related to the concept of beauty among women. They have a 48-page report (here: http://snipurl.com/r7ni — warning, it’s a .pdf file) from 2004 which looks at women’s attitudes to beauty in 10 countries, Japan being one of them (the only Asian country). From that, 41% of J-women are very/somewhat dissatisfied with their physical attractiveness (highest), while 59% are very/somewhat dissatisfied with their body weight and shape (the highest by at least 20 percentage points). And with respect to media portrayals, only 20% of Japanese women agreed with the statement “The media and advertising set an unrealistic standard of beauty that most women can’t ever achieve.” The next highest country was Canada, 49 percentage points higher!
hmmn » Blog Archive » Japanese women’s attitudes to beauty said,
June 2, 2006 @ 03:13
[…] Following up on a survey I found via What Japan Thinks related to Asian women’s attitudes to beauty, I found a larger survey conducted in 2004, The Real Truth About Beauty (.pdf file, 48 pages), that looked at perceptions of what beauty means among 10 countries, Japan being one of them (and the only Asian country represented). Both surveys were commisioned by Dove (Unilever), which has in the last couple of years built a successful ad and marketing campaign based on challenging received notions of beauty among women. While it’s easy to be cynical about a study commissioned by a for-profit company, the surveys make for fascinating reading, and for this reader, give valuable insights into how Japanese women perceive themselves, and also how they view the media environment in which they live. […]
Taro, at news.3yen.com said,
June 2, 2006 @ 11:48
It’s just not how “how Japanese women perceive themselves”—it’s how they perceive other women. Harshly.
To quote the “Coco in Tokyo” metroblog in the post “Beauty comes first”:
“There is a unwritten rule in Japanese female world. The rule is “Beauty talks in any time any occation.” …This caste is decided by other females. Guys’ opinion are ignored usually. This battle is females’ war. ”
http://doiop.com/coco_Beauty
Jamesha Walker said,
March 3, 2007 @ 18:52
I think that Japanese women are beautiful, no matter what. That is why I draw and paint the Japanese female nude. Plus, Japanese women are classier than women of other Asian countries, in my humble opinion and as far as I have seen. My question is, Why be jealous of Japanese female models, when there are models without artficial breast augmentations, 5′10″, and looking like they’re from a poorer Asian country than their own? Look at what America has: so many women jealous enough to have low self-esteem and want to take it out on other women, even those outside their race, distorting their faces and other body parts with plastic surgery, bleaching their hair, and changing their outward appearance just because “they have to”. And they got the nerve to hate on Japanese women, especially those who model nude! How crazy is that?! I am an artist who sees and appreciates beauty. Some times I’ll want to play with beauty by using the props I see fit, but by no means do I believe in exploiting other women than myself, and I am African-American. Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder, which can be beheld by an artist or a lover.