世論 What Japan Thinks

[part 1][part 2]

Recently, the Cabinet Office Japan took a detailed look at culture.

Demographics

Between the 11th and 15th of November 2009 3,000 people over the aged of twenty selected at random from resident lists all over the country were approached for interview. 1,853 people, or 61.8% were available and agreed to take part in face-to-face interviews. 52.6% of the sample were female, 8.7% in their twenties, 14.8% in their thirties, 17.6% in their forties, 16.6% in their fifties, 24.0% in their sixties, and 18.2% aged seventy or older.

Q14 is interesting in that traditional arts are what people think are most praised (not praiseworthy) worldwide. If traditional arts included bushido and ninjas, perhaps, but for the ones listed I hear they are worth seeing just once. Manga and anime are the most influential, I think, although perhaps not praised outside of a narrow demographic, and it is my personal mission to try to persuade as many of you that Takarazuka theatre should be experienced and hailed worldwide as a unique experience.
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[part 1][part 2]

Recently, the Cabinet Office Japan took a detailed look at culture.

Demographics

Between the 11th and 15th of November 2009 3,000 people over the aged of twenty selected at random from resident lists all over the country were approached for interview. 1,853 people, or 61.8% were available and agreed to take part in face-to-face interviews. 52.6% of the sample were female, 8.7% in their twenties, 14.8% in their thirties, 17.6% in their forties, 16.6% in their fifties, 24.0% in their sixties, and 18.2% aged seventy or older.

My two main cultural experiences are movies and theatre, especially musicals. I really should write reviews of what I see and get them published somewhere! I’ve been to one art gallery in the last year, which was in a rebuilt castle and filled with slightly creepy Christian art…
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Despite Japan having just about the cheapest and fastest home internet connections on the planet, this recent survey from iBridge Research Plus and reported on by japan.internet.com into home internet connections found the vast majority felt their pipes got quite blocked.

Demographics

On the 14th of December 2009 300 members of the iBridge Research Plus monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.3% of the sample were male, 13.0% in their twenties, 26.7% in their thirties, 35.3% in their forties, 17.0% in their fifties, and 8.0% in their sixties.

Despite 91.3% being on some form of broadband at home, nearly half reported a walking-speed connection. They may have low-end computers, but one cannot help wondering if 42% using Windows Explorer has anything to do with it? On my home PC, Opera flies, but my wife uses Internet Explorer 8 and it is ridiculously slow to create a new page (I’d vote tortoise rather than walking…), a combination of her having too many bookmarks and, I suspect, Rakuten toolbar.
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iShare once again take an interesting look at a corner of Japanese life, this time the matter of fortune telling.

Demographics

Between the 8th and 14th of January 2010 567 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 54.0% of the sample were male, 34.7% in their twenties, 30.7% in their thirties, and 34.6% in their forties.

I must say I was surprised at how low the percentage of blood type believers were – I would have guessed that the majority believed, but perhaps it’s just that blood type is just an easy conversation starter, the equivalent of “What’s your sign?”
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It’s coming up to Valentine’s Day, which in Japan means that women buy gifts for men, on the whole, not only for their true love (or object of affection) but also for men at work, although with Valentine’s Day falling on a Sunday this year, chocolate companies are hurting. So, today’s survey from Yahoo! Japan Value Insight is all about St Valentine’s Day.

Demographics

Between the 8th and 10th of January 2010 400 women between the ages of 20 and 39 resident within Tokyo and the surrounding prefectures of Kanagawa, Saitama and Chiba completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 100% were women, and 25.0% were aged between 20 and 24 years old, 25.0% between 25 and 29, 25.0% from 30 to 24, and 25.0% from 35 to 39.

The best chocolates I’ve received have been B.B. Chocolat Premier (hmm, they don’t seem to have an official web page), as I do like the look of them, which is just as important, if not more, that the actual taste on Valentine’s Day.
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It’s been a while since I’ve posted the results of a survey on QR Codes (these two-dimensional bar code things) but this one from Marsh Inc and reported on by japan.internet.com is worth the wait.

Demographics

Between the 20th and 24th of January 2010 300 members of the Marsh monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. The sample was exactly 50:50 male and female, 2.7% in their teens, 17.3% in their twenties, 20.0% in their thirties, 20.0% in their forties, 20.0% in their fifties, and 20.0% aged sixty or older.

A number of PC internet-targetted services – Yahoo! Maps springs to mind, and I think I’ve seen them for hotel bookings – display a QR Code that contains a URL that summarises the data on display in a mobile-friendly format. They also offer an option to email the URL to a mobile, but perhaps people worry about submitting their mobile email address and ending up being a spam target.

My two “Other” places for reading a QR Code was from a friend’s corporate PC inventory tag and from my health insurance card, just to see what information was encoded in both places.
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Palm reading is, of course, a load of nonsense based around cold reading, but regardless I felt this recent survey from goo Ranking looking at what lines people don’t want to have on their palms was worth translating just for the names of some of the lines that I suspect might have been made up just for the sake of the survey…

Demographics

Between the 18th and 21st of December 2009 1,077 members of the goo Research monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 51.0% of the sample were female, 8.7% in their teens, 15.3% in their twenties, 27.0% in their thirties, 27.8% in their forties, 11.9% in their fifties, and 9.3% aged sixty or older. Note that the score in the results refers to the relative number of votes for each option, not a percentage of the total sample.

I find it quite amusing that the bottom of the list is the pervy line, perhaps there ought to be a follow-up survey on what lines people wish they had. The original Japanese article describes exactly where each line can be found should you really wish to check your own hand.

The photo to the right is used with kind permission from Lee at Tokyo Times. It shows a street palm reader – in the evenings around most major stations you can usually find one or two of them plying their trade. Please click through to the original posting to see the image full size.
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