世論 What Japan Thinks

goo Ranking took a look at what people think are sinister omens.

Demographics

Over the 29th of February and the 1st of March 2012 1,175 members of the goo Research monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 61.4% of the sample were female, 10.0% in their teens, 16.5% in their twenties, 29.3% in their thirties, 24.1% in their forties, 10.6% in their fifties, and 9.5% 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.

Not being the superstitious type, none of them really bother me, although crows in general unsettle me, and in particular when they land on the fence outside our flat and clutch the metal with their claws – that scraping noise is quite unpleasant. My wife told me that the night before the Kobe earthquake there was a really deep red sunset, so she is a bit wary every time she sees one.

Here’s a pretty impressive big red moon:

Ranking results

Q: What things that if you notice them, you can’t help thinking of them as sinister omens? (Sample size=1,175)

Rank		Score
1	A cracked mirror	100
2	A snapped shoelace	77.1
3	Birds’ restless cries	66.1
4	The moon being big and too red	54.2
5	A broken dish	52.7
6	Crows cawing at night	52.2
7	An unusual red hue in the sky	44.5
8=	Deep sea fish coming to the surface	43.7
8=	Something related to a particular person or animal suddenly falls and breaks	43.7
10	A black cat crosses my path	43.4
11	A portion of a photo is warped, out of focus, etc	36.5
12	The number 4 stands out	35.0
13	I fall down in a graveyard	31.1
14	A mysterious noise on a telephone call	26.0
15	My dog won’t settle	24.7
16	666	13.6
17	A button falls off	12.9
18	My bicycle gets a puncture	11.8
19	My cat doesn’t come home	10.3
20	A child won’t stop crying	6.4