世論 What Japan Thinks

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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With today being Children’s Day in Japan, I present a survey that is sort-of connected to the theme, a look with goo Ranking at hidden secrets that prevent people rating themselves as proper adults, for both men and women.

Demographics

Between the 23rd and 25th of March 2009 1,043 members of the goo Research monitor group completed a private online questionnaire. 52.2% of the sample were male, 7.8% in their teens, 17.1% in their twenties, 28.2% in their thirties, 24.8% in their forties, 11.4% in their fifties, and 10.7% 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.

With these silly goo Rankings I do occasionally get creative with my translation, and I get some feedback from my readers about my less than literal translations, but I hope that since these surveys are just a bit of fun, any creativity (or flat-out errors) can be excused. For example, this survey question would directly translate as – actually, now I’ve started analysing my translation I cannot actually give a good literal translation. Perhaps I shouldn’t have even started this train of thought!

Talking of literal translations, the first number six for women actually reads “I can’t eat sushi without removing the rust“, so I hope you’ll let me off with that change!

I haven’t a clue why closing one’s eyes while washing one’s hair would be scary, barring being traumatised by watching Psycho at too young an age.
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Since Japan is entering holiday mode for the next week, I’ll be decreasing my posting frequency to perhaps once every two days until next Friday. To get you into the holiday mood, today goo Ranking posted up an appropriate survey looking at what makes you feel all lonely after spending all of a holiday day doing.

Demographics

Between the 23rd and 25th of March 2009 1,043 members of the goo Research monitor group completed a private online questionnaire. 52.2% of the sample were male, 7.8% in their teens, 17.1% in their twenties, 28.2% in their thirties, 24.8% in their forties, 11.4% in their fifties, and 10.7% 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.

Mine might be a variation of 17, spending all day trying to tweak my PC or troubleshooting – I should run full virus scans and spyware checks, as my wife’s suffering from a dead slow Internet Explorer which also occasionally just folds up completely. I should try her on Opera and tell her it’s just a new IE version. Since a bunch of patches were downloaded two weeks ago the performance has got even worse, but I think I’ll use it as an excuse to upgrade to two gigabytes of RAM.

Photo of Calvin the cat vegging out on the sofa with the remote by dolescum on flickr.
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This survey from MyVoice, their second look at department stores, had a surprising to me set of results, with Japanese much less frequent users of these stores than I might have imagined.

Demographics

Over the first five days of March 2009 15,606 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, 29% in their forties, and 19% aged fifty or older.

I recommend to every visitor to Japan that they go to department stores to at least just look; the basement floor is usually full of lots of speciality food stores that will be more than happy to hand out free samples at off-peak times. The best one I know for this is Hanshin Umeda – there’s always lots of free mouthfuls of wine, sake, fruit vinegar and tea to be had.

I quite often use these food areas, in particular RF1, which although a little on the expensive side has a wonderful range of salads. My favourites are their baked veggies – lots of potato, asparagus and carrot – and their Hokkaido Danshaku potato croquette, which are wonderfully soft and creamy.
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Given the quality of public transport and the concentration of the population in urban areas, I was surprised by the results of this survey by MyVoice into car life, where almost four in five rated it necessary to some lesser or more degree.

Demographics

Over the first five days of March 2009 15,391 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, 28% in their forties, and 19% aged fifty or older.

For me, owning a car is not needed in the slightest. I do rent a car twice or thrice a year when we need to visit various cemetaries, but outside these times I can manage shopping either just carrying stuff or getting home delivery; our speciality is going to a nearby Conan home centre and buying two or three trolleys full of kitchen and bathroom items, which we can get delivered to our door for just 800 yen. Add in the train tickets at 1,020 yen and it’s still under 2,000 yen once every six weeks or so, far cheaper than a car could ever be.
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Energy drinks are a big business in Japan, but I do try to avoid them. However, this recent survey from iShare Inc showed that about three in five Japanese aged between 30 and 59 imbibe these nutritional drinks.

Demographics

Between the 5th and 10th of March 2009 495 mobile phone-owning members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 56.4% of the sample were male, 23.8% in their thirties, 31.5% in their forties, and 44.4% in their fifties.

Taurine seems to have some sort of benefit to muscles and removing fatty deposits from livers, but no proven energy boost, despite it being sold as such in Japan.
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