悪臭 What Japan Stinks
…of in the summer, just to finish off the dangling headline. I’m back from my holidays, and back to stupidly hot temperatures around double of what I left back in the UK and Germany, so to tie in with the hot and humid weather right now (and it’s going to get a lot hotter and more humid before it’s done) let’s look with goo Ranking at what summer smells people hate. As usual for these ranking surveys, demographic information is not available, just that on the 22nd and 23rd of May a number of members of the goo Research monitor group completed an online survey on this topic.
One may notice that the top pong, body odour, relates to one of these things that foreigners hear (perhaps only from other foreigners?) about how the Japanese don’t sweat.
Finally, the kanji used in the headline, 悪臭, akushuu, consists of two kanji for bad and smell, and means exactly that.
Ranking results
Q: What stench of summer do you most dislike?
Rank Stench Score 1 Stench of other people’s body odour 100 2 Stench of rotting food 95.4 3 Stench of sweaty shoes and socks 79.7 4 Stench of sewers 62.4 5 Stench of other people’s poo 46.7 6 Stench of clothes dried in the sun 45.3 7 Stench of cigarettes 42.5 8 Stench of perfume 34.2 9 Stench in trains (closely-packed sweaty bodies, beer and food smells from clothes, etc) 29.6 10 Stench of female cosmetics 28.8 11 Stench of male cosmetics 25.9 12 Stench of pets 23.6 13 Stench in cars (plastic baking in the sun, etc) 22.3 14 Stench of insecticide 15.3 15 Stench of food 14.9 16 Stench of refrigerators 12.6 17 Stench of swimming pools (chlorine, etc) 12.5 18 Stench of insect repellant 10.8 19 Stench of sun cream 10.8 20 Stench of mosquito coils 10.2
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James said,
July 9, 2007 @ 23:15
他人のトイレのあとのニオイ ? What about one’s own after-toilet smell?
Stinky Japanese Summers » Japan Probe said,
July 10, 2007 @ 07:44
[…] What Japan Thinks has translated a goo Ranking based on a survey that asked Japanese people what summer smell they hated the most. Here are the results: […]
Deas said,
July 10, 2007 @ 11:11
James, I dunno about you, but I tend not to hang around in bathrooms after I’ve completed my business. So my own after-toilet smell isn’t particularly troubling. I’ve gotta agree with most of the rankings. I’m not surprised that mosquito coils were so low down - I don’t mind their smells at all. Ha ha.
alafista said,
July 10, 2007 @ 12:16
LOL this is such an interesting article. I wonder why do they even have such a survey.
Anyway, this is a interesting website. Its my first time here and I really like what you are posting ^_^
Jorge said,
July 10, 2007 @ 13:56
What about the bad breath of drunk salarymen?
And I have to admit that I haven’t seen many Japanese sweat outside sports activities… while I’m soaking…
And I haven’t smelled anyone’s body odour yet, except mine of course (-_-)
Un posto dove appendere il cappello » Blog Archive » Il Giappone in quattro sushi said,
July 11, 2007 @ 18:47
[…] ‘Tanfo’. What Japan Thinks è un sito molto interessante: ricorrendo a sondaggi, test e statistiche cerca di offrire ai suoi […]