世論 What Japan Thinks

Despite the New Year having already gone – Happy New Year to all my readers – let’s do a post on a survey from goo Ranking looking at when people feel the New Year is approaching.

Demographics

Between the 19th and 22nd of November 2010 1,171 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 50.2% of the sample were female, 11.3% in their teens, 19.1% in their twenties, 29.0% in their thirties, 23.4% in their forties, 9.6% in their fifties, and 7.6% 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.

To liven up today’s survey, I’ll embed a few pictures and videos of the events. I feel it getting near when it comes time to prepare New Year postcards, which we usually start around the end of November.

Ranking result

Q: When do you feel the New Year getting close? (Sample size=1,171)

Rank		Score
1	When the Red and White Song Contest comes on TV	100
2	When New Year decorations go on sale	97.0
3	When I start writing New Year nengajo postcards	94.8
4	When end of year specials appear on TV	91.5
5	When people start saying “Have a good New Year!” on parting	80.9
6	When doing the end-of-year big cleaning	64.6
7	When the end of year bells start ringing	59.7
8	When retrospective programs like “This Year’s Top 10 News Events” appear	58.5
9	When shops start displaying their end-of-year opening times	55.5
10	When hearing winter-themed songs	39.7
11	When broadcasts from “Ame-Yoko” appear	37.2
12	When the Kanji of the Year is unveiled	35.9
13	When starting to prepare New Year meals	31.0
14	When drinking at an end-of-year party	29.6
15	When applying for end-of-year tax refund (Nenmatsu Chousei)	28.0
16	When buying an end-of-year lottery ticket	27.1
17	When writing appointments for next year in my diary	23.3
18	When I feel TV adverts for kamaboko fish paste rolls are increasing	21.4
19	When returning to parent’s house, slipping under the kotatsu and eating satsumas	20.7
20	When left-over Christmas cakes are getting sold at knock-down prices	18.8