世論 What Japan Thinks

The only convenience store close by my house closes about 10 pm, and anyway I’m too broke and too married these days to get up to much at the midnight hour. However, this recent survey from MyVoice into late night and 24 hour businesses shows that there’s a lot of people active in the small hours.

Demographics

Over the first five days of May 2008 14,350 members of the MyVoice Internet Community successfully completed a private online survey. 54% of the sample was female, 2% in their teens, 15% in their twenties, 38% in their thirties, 29% in their forties, and 16% in their fifties.

Conspicuous by their absence in the list of late night operators are trains and buses. Most lines have their last train depart by midnight, with one reason being safety, to allow the operators four hours per night for essential maintenance. The other more cynical reason is that it keeps taxi drivers in business. It’s quite an amazing sight the first time you see taxis twenty deep outside the railway station after the last train departs!

Image from wukong on Flickr.
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Sorry for the rather boring headline, but since Nakamura ate my dog last week, I thought I’d better stay clear of any suggestive remarks regarding cat-owning young Japanese women and photographs of their… well, I hope you get the picture, so when you do, please forward it to me. Anyway, back at the survey, BlogCh and CLUB BBQ investigated pets.

Demographics

Between the 14th and 6th of May 2008 582 users of the free email forwarding service CLUB BBQ completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 51.9% of the sample was male, 15.5% in their twentes, 42.7% in their thirties, 31.9% in their forties, and 9.9% of other ages.

Pictured above is my lovely American Shorthair who is also my mobile phone wallpaper.

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With one of the favourite ways to pass the time in trains being fiddling with one’s mobile phone, this recent survey reported on by japan.internet.com and conducted by JR Tokai Express Research Inc into mobile phone email lets us look at what people are doing with them on the train.

Demographics

On the 10th of May 2008 330 members of the JR Tokai Express Research monitor group employed in the private sector completed a closed online questionnaire. 75.5% of the sample was male, 11.5% in their twenties, 35.2% in their thirties, 38.8% in their forties, 11.5% in their fifties, and 2.4% in their sixties. Note that as JR Tokai Express draws some of its monitor base from promotion through JR Tokai Express trains, there may very well be a bias towards people who frequently use the bullet train, where it is acceptable to talk on one’s mobile in between the carriages.

As noted above, as there are probably a lot of business travelers, the 11% who talk on trains might include a certain percentage who only do it on the shinkansen or other long-distance trains where such behaviour is acceptable.

Also in Q2, One Seg television at 12% just beats music playing, but many more people use iPods instead for their in-train audio entertainment.

The extra information from Q2 saying that three in four were checking route information strengthens my assumption that there were a lot of business travelers in the survey.
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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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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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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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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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Today and every 5th of May is Children’s Day in Japan, and to celebrate, goo Ranking published a list of what adventure novels from one’s childhood made one’s heart beat faster.

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. Only the single people were asked today’s questions.

This is a fascinating list. First, there is but one Japanese author, then there are a good number of countries represented, although of course it will be the Japanese translation that people read as a child. Next, I must admit to never having heard of books 2, 8, 18 and 19.

For me, the book that defined my childhood would have to be The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, both of them read to me by my mother. I could only manage to read by myself the Tales of Narnia, which would probably be third on my list of memorable adventures.
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