世論 What Japan Thinks

With just a few days to go before the end of November, which means that for residents of Japan planning to send 年賀状, nengajou, New Year Cards for the Year of the Rat, this weekend is your last chance to get a discount for early orders. To see what the Japanese are planning to do this year, goo Research, in conjunction with the Yomiuri Shimbun, performed a survey on New Year Postcards. It may be instructive to look at last year’s survey on New Year Postcards to see how opinions have changed over the last year.

Demographics

Unfortunately little demographic information was reported, bar that the fieldwork was conducted towards the end of October, with 1,082 successful responses received.

For those of you in the USA, or in fact Japan, as they do ship internationally, wanting your own custom New Year cards (or Christmas cards, or any other occasion, may I recommend TinyPrints as a high-quality supplier of personalised stationery, with many card designs starting from just over a dollar per card. Note if you choose to order, enter the code WINTER07 for a 5% discount, expiring on the first of February 2008.

We’ll personally be ordering about 80 cards from 55 station this weekend, and even though the coming year is the Year of the Rat we’ll give Mickey Mouse a miss, instead getting a mix of Hello Kitty and Rilakkuma photo cards. Printing the address on the back of the cards will however be done ourselves at home. Although ordering cards seems expensive up front compared to home printing, once you budget for printer ink, losses due to paper jams, and other required user effort, it’s actually quite reasonable, and the print quality is considerably higher than a standard home ink jet.

Note that in Q1SQ1, the 8% who said they won’t print their New Year Postcards includes those buying pre-printed cards and writing addresses by hand, and those who handmake their own cards.
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With today being Husband and Wife Day in Japan – the date is 11/22, and one way of pronoucing the numbers is ii fuufu, or in kanji 良い夫婦, which means “Good Husband and Wife” – here is a short but perhaps sweet survey from goo Ranking on the secrets of maintaining that newlywed feeling. As usual, no demographics information bar that the data was collected between the 25th and 27th of September 2007. Presumably the respondents were all married. Separate rankings for male and female would have been welcome, but perhaps that wouldn’t be in keeping with the spirit of the day.

What’s your secret? Mine is plently of hugs.
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This is another one of these surveys that I particularly like, taking a look at a slightly obscure topic and revealing just a little bit of trivial information regarding the habits of many Japanese, and I hope my readers enjoy them too! This time japan.internet.com reported on a survey by Cross Marketing Inc into computers at home.

Demographics

Over the 31st of October and 1st of November 2007 300 members of Cross Marketing’s online monitor group who use a computer at home successfully completed a private internet-based questionnaire. As usual for this survey company, there was a 50:50 split by sex, and 20.0% in their teens, 20.0% in their twenties, 20.0% in their thirties, 20.0% in their forties, and 20.0% in their fifties.

Chez Ken Y-N actually has a study, or more precisely a spare bedroom that acts as a cupboard, but with a computer desk squeezed into one corner. In Q2 I was surprised that at most one person actually uses a laptop as a laptop. Unfortunately there was no information provided on what percentage of the machines were desktop versus laptops.
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With communication and community being two of the driving forces behind many new web sites, and indeed being two of the building blocks of Web 2.0, it is instructive to have a look at this survey recently reported on by japan.internet.com and conducted by Corss Marketing Inc into internet communication.

Demographics

On the 7th and 8th of November 2007 300 members of Cross Marketing’s online monitor pool successfully completed a private online questionnaire. The sample was split 50:50 male and female, and 20.0% were in their teens, 20.0% in their twenties, 20.0% in their thirties, 20.0% in their forties, and 20.0% in their fifties.

Looking at the results of this survey, it is fair to conclude that the average Japanese internet user is not an anti-social git!
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[part 1][part 2]

The Cabinet Office Japan recently published the results of a survey they performed into cancer issues.

Demographics

Between the 13th and 23th of September 2007 3,000 adults selected at random from the whole Japanese population were visited for the purpose of face-to-face interviews. 1,767 people, or 58.9% were available and consented to be interviewed. 53.6% were female, 9.4% were in their twenties, 16.6% in their thirties, 15.1% in their forties, 19.9% in their fifties, 21.6% in their sixties, and 17.3% aged seventy or older. Furthermore, 74.3% had either themselves had cancer or had had family, relations or close colleagues who had experienced cancer.

I’d not heard about a national cancer registry before, but some searching on the internet revealed this overview on what the national cancer registries are used for in the UK.

Most Westerns will be surprised by Q13 where less than a third say that the government should put effort into cancer prevention, even though tobacco was specifically mentioned and in Q2 most quitting smoking was chosen as the measure most people had taken to reduce their risks. The reasons for this include that Japanese see smoking as a personal choice, not something that the government should be getting involved in, although given that the government owns a majority stake in Japan Tobacco, it’s already in the cancer business.
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[part 1][part 2]

The Cabinet Office Japan recently published the results of a survey they performed into cancer issues.

Demographics

Between the 13th and 23th of September 2007 3,000 adults selected at random from the whole Japanese population were visited for the purpose of face-to-face interviews. 1,767 people, or 58.9% were available and consented to be interviewed. 53.6% were female, 9.4% were in their twenties, 16.6% in their thirties, 15.1% in their forties, 19.9% in their fifties, 21.6% in their sixties, and 17.3% aged seventy or older. Furthermore, 74.3% had either themselves had cancer or had had family, relations or close colleagues who had experienced cancer.

Once again there is a complete failure to mention the cancer that in 2020 will become the second most common cancer in Japan for men, namely prostate cancer, according to official projections of incidence of cancer amongst the general population. Breast cancer is much more sexy, as it were, for television, as even women would agree they’d much prefer to watch a mammary gland self-examination than a prostate one…

In Q2, I was suprised by the high percentage of people not eating burnt food – I thought the risks from this were rather minimal, but I suppose rather safe than sorry. I don’t really know what the mold one is though.
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I don’t know if it’s seasonal or just that I’ve been prompted to recall them by translating this survey, but there does seem to have been rather a number of advertisements for premium beer on the television and in print these days. The survey that prompted this recall was on my MyVoice into premium beer.

Demographics

Over the first five days of October 2007 16,882 members of the MyVoice internet community completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 54% of the sample was female, 17% in their twenties, 40% in their thirties, 27% in their forties, and 16% in their fifties. Note that since the legal drinking age is 20, no teenagers took part in this survey.

The exact definition of “premium beer” is not discussed, but it is presumably based on price differentiation. Q3 lists the main beers that are considered to be premium. For me, Yebisu is the only one in the list I’d choose; Guinness, a brew I like back in the UK, is brewed under licence here and has a very unpleasant bitter, tarry aftertaste.
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[part 1][part 2]

Last year I translated an interesting survey on kimono, so as perhaps a followup, DIMSDRIVE Research recently took a look at the other Japanese national dress, the suit.

Demographics

Between the 22nd and 31st of August 2007 6,366 members of the DIMSDRIVE monitor group successfully completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 54.9% of the sample was female, 1.0% in their teens, 15.3% in their twenties, 35.8% in their thirties, 27.6% in their forties, 14.2% in their fifties, and 6.1% aged sixty or older. In addition, 39.0% of the sample were company employees (including contract employees), 1.6% were executive or board level, 4.2% worked in the public sector, 9.2% were self-employed, 12.9% were part-time or caqsual, and 33.1% were others, which included housewives, students and retired people.

In Q7A, the “aging playboy” option is my translation of a phrase that has been in vogue recently, ちょいワル, choi waru, a shortened form of ちょい悪オヤジ, choi waru oyaji, literally “slightly bad old guy”, an aspirational phrase that is meant to appeal to the middle-aged men’s fashion and lifestyle magazine reading segment of the population. Thinking about western role models, George Cluney and Sean Connery in Italian tailored suits would perhaps be typical choi warui oyaji gaijins.

One suspects that in some of the answers in Q9, the male respondents may have been thinking more about birthday suits. Indeed, I couldn’t find images of many of them in said formal dress, so instead here’s a couple of other Japanese women in suits:

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[part 1][part 2]

Last year I translated an interesting survey on kimono, so as perhaps a followup, DIMSDRIVE Research recently took a look at the other Japanese national dress, the suit.

Demographics

Between the 22nd and 31st of August 2007 6,366 members of the DIMSDRIVE monitor group successfully completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 54.9% of the sample was female, 1.0% in their teens, 15.3% in their twenties, 35.8% in their thirties, 27.6% in their forties, 14.2% in their fifties, and 6.1% aged sixty or older. In addition, 39.0% of the sample were company employees (including contract employees), 1.6% were executive or board level, 4.2% worked in the public sector, 9.2% were self-employed, 12.9% were part-time or caqsual, and 33.1% were others, which included housewives, students and retired people.

I personally hate suits, but own two; one gets dragged out for the very occasional business trip, and the other one is in reserve for funerals. Our office is casual or company uniform, but I am about the only person in the office who wears a shirt (open-necked) on a daily basis, which is perhaps a bit odd.

For the purposes of this survey, a suit was defined as a matching jacket and trousers or skirt.
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No, we’re not peering at that aspect of Japanese bedrooms, instead MyVoice looked at just about everything that goes on in the typical Japanese bedroom.

Demographics

Over the first five days in September 2007 13,886 members of the MyVoice internet community completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 54% of the sample was female, 2% in their teens, 17% in their twenties, 39% in their thirties, 27% in their forties, and 15% in their fifties. Sadly the percentage of married people is not reported.

I would say I’m most comfortable in my garden and my bedroom, especially now that we’ve just changed to winter sheets! For Q3, outside of sleeping (etc…) I don’t actually use our bedroom for anything. My ideal bedroom colour would be perhaps a pastel green.
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