世論 What Japan Thinks

I’ve never eaten a convenience store bento (boxed lunch) as I am yet to see a vegetarian offering; the best I did when I was single was a Lawson’s tomato pasta, which was particularly disgusting. However, that doesn’t seem to bother many people in this survey from MyVoice into convenience store boxed lunches.

Demographics

Over the first five days of June 2009 15,023 members of the MyVoice internet community successfully completed a private online questionnaire. 54% of the sample were female, 2% in their teens, 14% in their twenties, 36% in their thirties, 30% in their forties, and 18% aged fifty or older.

The actual title of this survey, and coincidentally the name of a sadly deceased (the blog, not the blogger!) gaijin blogger’s blog, is the commonly used abbreviation, conbini bento.
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This recent survey from DIMSDRIVE Research into pets had interesting information regarding insurance, but sadly the number of pets per person were not reported, a figure that would have helped in understanding some of the numbers.

Demographics

Between the 11th and 26th of March 2009 10,501 members of the DIMSDRIVE monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. The sample was 50:50 male and female (one more female than male, but she was lost in rounding), 1.1% were in their teens, 13.1% in their twenties, 33.8% in their thirties, 30.6% in their forties, 14.7% in their fifties, and 6.7% aged sixty or older. Additional demographic information included 51.4% lived in a house, 33.5% in a flat, 12.7% in an apartment, and 2.4% in other accommodation.

I really don’t like pet shops in Japan at all; the cages on display are far too small, and they take the animals away from their mothers too early - about six weeks is the standard figure, while they are still cute enough to sell. I remember last year seeing one male kitten that was so desparate for mother’s milk that it had taken to sucking his own nipple, pulling out a lot of his own hair and leaving a big ugly raw-red mark on his chest.
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If I’d translated this one yesterday I could have been all nice and happy and bright, but since it’s today, you’ll have to accept my translation of MyVoice’s look at stress - their third look, and I translated their second stress survey here - being done under pressure.

Demographics

Over the first five days of June 2009 14,878 members of the MyVoice internet community completed a private online questionnaire. 54% of the sample were female, 2% in their teens, 14% in their twenties, 37% in their thirties, 29% in their forties, and 18% aged fifty or older.

Ahh, work decided today to change the information security rules; it’s not quite RFID tagging everything and setting up automated machine-gun nests at the exits to discipline offenders, but it’s getting there. The main cause of concern seems to be memory cards getting lost; the sensible measure would be to turn on an option in the system management software that everyone has that automatically encrypts all writes to memory cards, but instead we just get excessively-strict tracking of cards, which ignores the fact that the losses happened due to people ignoring the simpler rules. They are also suggesting that there might be a new rule that effectively makes taking a mobile phone or audio player to work impractical. Idiots.

Then on the way out of the office, one guy stopped walking right in front of me just outside the gate, I moved round and almost got run over by a cyclist, then the communist party were making a racket outside the station. I swore at the guy who tried to give me a leaflet, which did make me feel a little better.
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Given the high level of ownership of digital cameras reported in this survey from goo Research and featured on japan.internet.com, one has to wonder, as the question wasn’t answered in the article, why almost half the people manage less than 5 gigabytes of stored images.

Demographics

Between the 4th and 9th of June 2009 1,042 members of the goo Research monitor group completed an internet-based questionnaire. 52.5% of the sample were male, 16.3% in their teens, 17.7% in their twenties, 21.3% in their thirties, 16.3% in their forties, 15.6% in their fifties, and 12.8% aged sixty or older.

On the other hand, Q3 asks specifically about photographs one has taken oneself, and since it is the wife who usually uses the camera, probably less than 2 GB of the 20 GB or more is actually mine…
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With Father’s Day being next weekend, here’s a timely look with DIMSDRIVE Research at a popular gift for this time of year, electric razors.

Demographics

Between the 13th and 28th or May 2009 9,897 members of the DIMSDRIVE monitor group successfully completed a private online questionnaire. 50.3% of the sample were male, 1.0% in their teens, 13.0% in their twenties, 34.4% in their thirties, 30.3% in their forties, 15.1% in their fifties, and 6.2% aged sixty or older. 63.5% of the sample were married, although I don’t know if that has any significance towards the results.

Both my electric shavers have been presents from the wife. The first was a rather naff Hitachi single-headed alkali battery-operated one that required me to use a razor once a week or more to catch all the bits that it missed, and my current Braun was free via credit card mileage points. I use shaving gel to set up my skin, and barring quite poor performance around the Adam’s apple area, I’m quite happy.

You’ll note that there is no question “do you have a beard, thus no need to shave?”, or even asking how the beard trimming features of the shaver is.
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Here’s a topic that makes me purr with satisfaction, a recent survey from iShare into pet blogs which found that blogging cats were much more popular than dogs.

Demographics

Between the 14th and 19th of May 2009 565 mobile phone-owning members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 53.6% of the sample were male, 35.0% in their twenties, 31.7% in their thirties, and 33.3% in their forties.

I don’t read any pet blogs myself, but my wife keeps a regular watch on Nyanny Cat Cafe, some person with a cocker spaniel whose blog isn’t really interesting enough for me to look for to provide a link, and a vegan Japanese ex-resident of Edinburgh dog-owning woman.

I (well, my wife used my name) also recently won a cat photo book. In Q3, the “other” category would include alpaca, as there is a bit of an alpaca fad doing the rounds these days.
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If you’ve ever read any guide books to Japan you’ll no doubt have heard of the “Oto Hime”, Sound Princess, a device in toilets that plays a tune while you do the business. To find out how people use them, iShare conducted a survey into toilet noises.

Demographics

Betwen the 16th and 21st of April 2009 395 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private mobile phone internet-based questionnaire. 52.7% of the sample were male, 35.7% in their twenties, 29.1% in their thirties, and 35.2% in their forties.

I once did visit a unisex toilet that had an Oto Hime device, but I was too embarassed to press the button.

I didn’t translate the extra question, but they did ask if people tried to save water and other resources, but even those who did flushed the toilet almost as often as those who didn’t. However, a more interesting comparison might have been to whether people are constipated - if you’re straining on the pan for five minutes other people are going to be more of a concern than if you’re in and out in twenty seconds.

I only get bothered when there’s someone with a bad case of the runs splattering away.

If you enjoyed the topic of this survey, you may also enjoy when iShare looked at bum-washing toilets and at public toilets.
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Recently MyVoice investigated the subject of confectionery consumption amongst its panel of monitors. As a cross-reference, last year MyVoice looked at cheering oneself up with sweets.

Demographics

Over the first five days of April 2009 15,582 members of the MyVoice internet community successfully completed a private online questionnaire. 54% of the sample were female, 2% were in their teens, 15% in their twenties, 35% in their thirties, 29% in their forties, and 19% after fifty or older.

I’m surprised at the relatively low figure for spending in Q6, especially given a quarter eat sweets daily - I wonder if this means people only counting treating themselves explicitly to sweets, rather than also adding in purchases of treats for children that they eat together?
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Despite the suspicious-looking title and the dodgy picture, it’s not Sunday and a silly ranking, but a serious survey from iShare into alcohol consumption and indiscretions.

Demographics

Between the 24th and 30th of April 2009 398 mobile phone-using members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private interent-based questionnaire. 51.8% of the sample were male, 39.4% in their twenties, 30.4% in their thirties, and 30.2% in their forties.

There’s so much interesting data here I hardly know where to start! In Q1SQ2 women rate themselves as stronger drinkers than men, although perhaps they are compaing themselves with other women rather than men? In Q1SQ5, it’s quite a surprisingly high number of people who’ve ended up on one-night-stands (or worse) due to alcohol.

Captioned photo based on an image from JanneM on flickr.
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This recent survey from MyVoice into tea and tea-like drinks, their second on the subject, with the first from two years ago translated here) found actually that coffee was the top drink, replacing green tea at the top of the list.

Demographics

Over the first five days of April 2009 15,578 members of the MyVoice internet community successfully completed a private online questionnaire. 54% of the sample were female, 2% in their teens, 15% in their twenties, 35% in their thirties, 30% in their forties, and 18% aged fifty or older.

Recently when it comes to packaged drinks I’ve been more of a diet coke person, but I drink mostly black tea at work and green and houji (roasted green tea) at home. That’s a good point, does the “other Japanese tea” in Q1 include houji, or does it get counted with green tea? My personal feeling is that it falls under the other Japanese tea category.

In the following questions, “tea-related drinks” covers green tea, other Japanese tea, Chinese tea, black (Indian) tea, and blended tea (either tea tea or other tea-like base) plus other herbs.
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