世論 What Japan Thinks

I may be trying to outdo Tokyo Times for alliterative headlines, but I’ll not be challenging his collection of themed bras and panties. (Each word is a different link!) This is instead a photograph-free fact-filled serious survey into pantie purchasing (OK, you get the idea, back to normal!) conducted by iShare and reported through BlogCh.

Demographics

Between the 7th and 9th of May 2008 723 members of the iShare online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 54.1% of the sample was male, 20.5% were in their twenties, 53.4% in their thirties, and 26.1% in their forties.

The lucky underwear in Q3, or as it’s known in Japanese, 勝負下着, shoubu shitagi, refers to underwear worn on the whole, I think, when going on dates (or just going out) in the hope of getting lucky.

I’m not really sure about the 1.0% of guys wearing T-backs in Q4, and I wonder if going commando is a significant percentage of the others in Q4 and Q5.

Most of mine are Hello Kitty and other cute character boxers, bought by the wife, if you must know!
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Thanks to legislation in the last couple of years, the rates of interest for personal unsecured loans have dropped from around 27% to a much lower but still outrageously expensive 10% to 19%. To see how these and other changes have affected consumer opinions, MyVoice conducted a survey into personal loans, their fifth annual survey, although I haven’t translated any of the previous ones.

Demographics

Over the first five days of April 2008 14,989 members of the MyVoice internet community completed a private online questionnaire. 54% of the sample was female, 1% in their teens, 14% in their twenties, 38% in their thirties, 30% in their forties, and 17% aged fifty or older.

Here, personal loan is defined as covering consumer credit, “cashing” or cash advances from credit companies (I think that includes cash withdrawls from a credit card) that are paid back in installments, and loans from joint ventures between consumer credit companies and banks. Bank-only loans are not covered.

I personally view these loan companies as gateway drugs to the loansharks; even with the legislation to reduce the interest rates and to require a wealth warning about maintaining a proper balance between income and outgoings the companies are still notorious for high-pressure sales and debt collection tactics, taking advantage of the average consumer’s reluctance to approach a third party for help with debt issues. Persistant rumours of association with the Yakuza hang around many companies despite official statements to the contrary.

For their part, Aiful were responsible for inflicting chihuahuas on too many people with even less money than sense.
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This recent survey reported on by japan.internet.com and conducted by JR Tokai Express Research Inc looks at the giant of the Japanese Social Networking Service market, mixi.

Demographics

On the 30th of April 2008 330 members of the JR Tokai Express Research monitor group employed in the private sector completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 70.6% of the sample was male, 13.0% in their twenties, 43.3% in their thirties, 33.0% in their forties, 8.8% in their fifties, and 1.5% in their sixties. Why exactly they limited the sample to only the private sector is a bit of a mystery to me, however.

Before you ask, sorry, I don’t have any invites to mixi to give to anyone. To sign up you need a Japanese mobile phone email address, but I don’t know of anyone offering a proxy service for sign-ups, whether for free or for a small fee. Indeed, there might be a minor business opportunity there, selling sign-ups. If anyone does know of such a service, or is offering to do sign-ups for free, etc, please drop me a line and I’ll link to you.
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As the proud owner of a spam-free cell phone, this survey reported on by japan.internet.com and conducted by JR Tokai Express Research Inc into this topic of cell phone spam was rather interesting to see.

Demographics

Between the 1st and 4th of May 2008 312 members of the JR Tokai Express Research monitor group who were mobile phone email users completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 53.3% of the sample was female, 2.4% in their teens, 17.6% in their twenties, 37.6% in their thirties, 26.4% in their forties, 9.4% in their fifties, and 4.8% aged sixty or older. Looking at when a similar spam survey was conducted in February 2007, and following the usual pattern of JR Tokai Express Researh, the original sample was actually 330 or 331 people, so just over 5% did not have mobile phones.

One could interpret the results from Q1 to mean that once you’re on a spammer’s list you’re going to get hit badly, as dodgy Japanese companies (or even reputable ones like Rakuten) are not backward about flooding your mailbox or selling on your address. Of course, my PC mailbox for the blog is anything but spam-free, although my private address gets just one per day or so, thanks to POBox.com’s spam filtering.
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As well as being suitably silly for your Sunday entertainment, this recent survey from goo Ranking into Japan’s cutest corporate mascot is also an excuse to introduce a new blog, Japanese mascots, which does just what it says on the tin.

Demographics

Over the 21st and 22nd of March 2008 1,036 people from the goo Research monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 50.7% were male, 7.0% in their teens, 14.7% in their twenties, 30.1% in their thirties, 27.0% in their forties, 10.9% in their fifties, and 10.2% aged sixty or over. Note that the score in the results refers to the relative number of votes for each option, not a percentage of the total sample.

My favourite character is Liyon-chan, but he doesn’t make the list as he’s a Kansai-only character, I think, or perhaps he was wrongly-counted as the Lion Lion-chan? From the list, it would have to be Pinky then Koala no March kun.

Note that characters from companies like Sanrio, Disney, and San-X who are sold as characters in their own right were excluded from this survey.

Oh, and click the character photos to see a video of the animal in action.
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The health topic of the last couple of years in Japan has most certainly been Metabolic Syndrome, having certain characteristics associated with being fat that make you more prone to lifestyle diseases like heart disease, stroke and diabetes. Many countries have slightly different diagnostic measures; for Japan it is a waist greater than 85 cm for men, 90 cm for women; triglycerids greater than 150 mg/dL and/or HDL cholesterol of under 40 mg/dL; blood pressure greater than 130 over 85; and glucose level of 110 mg/dL or more.

With the recent introduction of mandatory screening for MetS (to use the official abbreviation), goo Research in conjunction with the Mainichi Shimbun decided to investigate what people think of these metabo examinations.

Demographics

Between the 4th and 6th of April 2008 1,088 members of the goo Research monitor group over the age of 20 completed a private internet-based questionnaire. Further demographic data was not provided. Note that the sample size for some of the questions are not given and that answers have been abbreviated.

I’ve been chosen as a guinea pig for our company screening, but I might have forgotten to attend the test. I’ve lost the bit of paper, I think, and it looked more like an excuse to try to sell me life insurance.

Note that the new screening system is not just getting diagnosed as fat, but also includes health improvement advice and instruction.
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Just about the only thing in Japan that is noticably cheaper than anywhere else is broadband, with 4,000 yen per month (US$40, UK&147;20 or so) being on the expensive side for proper broadband (often 10 Mbps or more). To see how that low price is shaping the market, please study this survey from Marsh Inc and reported on by japan.internet.com into internet usage .

Demographics

Over the 30th of April and 1st of May 2008 300 members of the Marsh monitors completed a private internet-based questionnaire. In the sample the male:female split was exactly 50:50, 20.0% were in their teens, 20.0% in their twenties, 20.0% in their thirties, 20.0% in their forties, 14.7% in their fifties, and 5.3% aged sixty or older.

The article also notes that the broadband market was worth just under 1.2 trillion yen in 2007, (about 12 billion US dollars), and is predicted to be nearly 1.25 trillion yen this year, and over 1.4 trillion yen by 2012.

The report also does not consider cable to be broadband!
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Eating alone is something I do quite a bit myself, and I do find it relaxing to have peace and quiet for a few minutes every day. To see what image Japanese people have of this, MyVoice recently conducted a survey into this topic of eating alone.

Demographics

Over the first five days of April 2008 14,878 members of the MyVoice internet community successfully completed a private online questionnaire. 54% of the sample were female, 1% in their teens, 14% in their twenties, 38% in their thirties, 30% in their forties, and 17% in their fifties.

I have two meals a day during the week alone; for breakfast I’m up too early (I’m surprised that wasn’t an offered answer for Q5), and at lunch, as I can’t be bothered eating with my colleagues and the eating noises in the dining hall put me off anyway, so I pop out myself for some bread to eat at my desk. Evening meals alone at restaurants are depressing on the whole, although when I was single there was a nice okonomiyaki shop to while away the hours after work in.
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Not too surprisingly, Yahoo! comes out on top as the most frequently used news site in Japan, but there are still many interesting results in this survey from MyVoice into news sites.

Demographics

Over the first four days of April 2008 14,913 members of the MyVoice internet community successfully completed a private online questionnaire. 54% of the sample was female, 1% in their teens, 15% in their twenties, 37% in their thirties, 30% in their forties, and 17% in their fifties.

I am glad to see that the top complaint is the lack of information in articles; most Japanese articles are just two or three paragraphs long and as a user of Google News one finds very similar reports in different papers. Google News also reveals another problem, namely that articles often expire really quickly; even after only a few hours a lot of the links on Google News lead to error pages.

For English news on Japan, I recommend the appropriately-named News on Japan as a useful aggregator of news, although in a few months there may very well be a new challenger in this market…
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With the Golden Week holidays over today, this will be the final filler ranking survey (they’re always quick and easy to translate!) this time on the holiday theme of what typical Japanese tourist behaviour people end up doing on overseas holidays.

Demographics

Over the 21st and 22nd of March 2008 1,036 people from the goo Research monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 50.7% were male, 7.0% in their teens, 14.7% in their twenties, 30.1% in their thirties, 27.0% in their forties, 10.9% in their fifties, and 10.2% aged sixty or over. Note that the score in the results refers to the relative number of votes for each option, not a percentage of the total sample.

Although I’ve only done one Japanese group tour to Europe (you have to do it once yourself, just so you know how bad it is!) I think the taking of optional tours was the most common I saw from others. When the tour stopped at Vienna, we’d already ordered tickets for the musical Elizabeth so we went there whilst everyone else headed off on the optional tour.

Even on personal tours, my wife photographs and videos just about everything, which I find immensely dull as we’ll probably never watch the videos again, and seeing the sights through the viewfinder cannot be much fun at all.

The final choice, which I thought might be higher, ordering souvenirs before departure, perhaps needs a little explanation for people who are not so familiar with Japan. Souvenir giving is a highly ritualised event, such that one needs (yes, needs) to buy a small present for just about every friend and acquaintance, often macadamia chocolates, but close friends sometimes actually name what they want. So, rather than fill up one’s suitcase with 20 boxes of nuts or whatever, there are many mail-order catalogues to be had from the travel agent that will deliver the day you return from holiday. I find the whole business extremely impersonal, and would much rather a hand-written postcard that showed me someone took some effort to think of me while they were away, and it’s much more fun for me to write these cards compared to traipsing round airport shops.

Photo from nubui on flickr.
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