世論 What Japan Thinks

Here’s a subject that I’m covering for the first time on this site, hair. Japanese men don’t seem to lose their hair as much as western people, and there seems to be a high degree of use of hair dyes and hair growth products amongst older men, and far too many young women stain their lovely natural blacks with brown, or even worse blonde dyes. To find out what the average Japanese person does, I now present a report by infoPLANT on a survey they conducted into the usage of hair care and hair styling products.

Demographics

Between the 22nd and 29th of May 2007 infoPLANT promoted a questionnaire publicly accessible through the NTT DoCoMo iMode menu system. 6,028 people self-selected themselves, with 65.2% of the sample being female. 3.0% were in their teens, 31.9% in their twenties, 42.7% in their thirties, 19.0% in their forties, and 3.4% aged fifty or older.

I’m personally just setting out on the beginings of your common-or-garden male-pattern baldness, or かっぱ状態, kappa joutai, as my wife so endearingly calls it, namely looking like the legendary frog, only with the bald spot instead of a saucer on top of my head. I personally have no interest in any methods of disguise, and my hair care is nothing more than using a standard cheap conditioner after hair washing.

Note in the headline oyaji means middle-aged man, and the onset can be as early as thirty, as it is as much a state of mind as a physical condition.
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If you asked a group of western foreigners what kindnesses they thought the Japanese were failing to do, undoubtedly Ladies First would appear near the top of the list. However, when goo Ranking asked the Japanese what kindnesses they themselves couldn’t do, Ladies First appeared nowhere on the list, not due to all Japanese men thinking they always show respect, but just due to the fact that Ladies First is not a concept that appears anywhere in Japanese etiquette.
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With summer coming up soon and thoughts turning towards travel, NEPRO Japan recently published the results of a survey it conducted on the topic of mobile phones and holidays. Here holidays covers everything from day trips to overseas travel.

Demographics

Over the 10th and 11th of May 2007 3,866 self-selecting users chose to complete a survey made available through the three major mobile menuing systems; NTT DoCoMo’s iMode, SoftBank’s Yahoo! Keitai, and au’s EZweb. 58% of the respondents were female, 3% in their teens, 34% in their twenties, 44% in their thirties, and 19% aged forty or older. As has been noted before for infoPLANT surveys, the self-selecting sample nature tends to attract heavy mobile phone users.

This is a rather disappointing study as a number of questions that I think should be multiple choice are asked as single answer ones, for instance. When we’ve been on domestic travel, we’ve never used our mobiles for anything other than just email or photographs, and international travel packet charges are too high to even contemplate taking a live mobile along, although wifey does take hers as an address book.
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With the rather amusingly-name “My Bag” campaign to persuade Japanese consumers to start bringing their own shopping bag with them gathering steam, MyVoice recently published the results of a survey they conducted into the reuse of check-out bags. This is quite a timely survey, with the big convenience store chain 7-11 recently announcing that it would start charging 5 yen per bag at all its stores.

Demographics

Over the first five days of May 2007, 15,078 members of the MyVoice internet community completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 46% of the sample was male, 1% in their teens, 17% in their twenties, 40% in their thirties, 28% in their forties, and 14% in their fifties.

This is a subject I’ve looked at before, but this survey takes an interesting look at what exactly people do with the bags once they get home. Sadly, Q2 and Q3 were badly-worded, lumping two questions together; I would have rather seen the two parts asked individually.
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The average Japanese home often has little of a garden, as with land both scarce and expensive there is little incentive to waste it on such frivolaties as grass; indeed I saw a television advertisement recently for a building company whose USP (Unique Selling Point) was that they could squeeze your new home in with as little as 15 centimetres of clearance from the next house! So, with that in mind let’s look at a survey counducted by DIMSDRIVE Research on a subject that’s close to my heart, that of gardening.

Demographics

Between the 4th and 12th of April 2007 5,949 members of DIMSDRIVE Research’s internet monitor panel completed a private survey. 53.6% of the sample was female, 0.9% in their teens, 14.2% in their twenties, 33.3% in their thirties, 31.0% in their forties, 14.2% in their fifties, and 6.4% aged sixty or older. 47.9% lived in thieir own (or their family’s, etc) home, 17.1% in a purchased flat or apartment, 3.9% in a rented house, and 28.3% in a rented apartment. 2.8% lived in other types of accomodation.

I love my gardening, although I don’t get to do it as much as I would like. Due to the rules where we live, we are not allowed to plant anything bar grass in the ground, so everything gets placed in plant pots. We have a number of fruit trees in various stages of death/insect infestation/general malaise, some very nice roses, assorted flowers and shrubbery, and chives and mint for home cooking.
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MyVoice recently published the results of their second survey into the most important meal of the day, breakfast.

Demographics

Between the 1st and 5th of May 2007 15,239 members of MyVoice’s internet community completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 54% of the sample was female, 2% in their teens, 18% in their twenties, 40% in their thirties, 26% in their forties, and 14% in their fifties.

During the week my breakfast is a couple of slices of bread in the toaster and a fermented milk drink, eaten every day by myself at far too early an hour. Weekends is similar but with the addition of salad and eggs, and currently since it is in season, mint tea picked from our garden.
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MyVoice recently conducted its second survey into the topic of the consumption of drinking vinegar.

Demographics

Between the 1st and 5th of May 2007 14,891 members of the MyVoice internet community completed an online survey. 54% of the sample was female, 1% in their teens, 18% in their twenties, 39% in their thirties, 27% in their forties, and 15% in their fifties.

A few years ago there was quite a boom in drinking vinegar, but recently I don’t hear of it so often, perhaps in part due to the downfall of Aru-Aru Daijiten. I do drink it regularly, and recently one of my favourite places to do so is C’s Garden Cafe.

In addition, I have prepared an information page on the health benefits of drinking vinegar.
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infoPLANT recently published the results of a survey on the topic of electronic publishing contents consumption on mobile phones, or in other words reading books and magazines on a cell phone.

Demographics

Between the 8th and 15th of May 2007 5,380 people chose to complete a survey made publicly-available through NTT DoCoMo’s iMode mobile phone menuing system. 62.8% of the sample was female. As has been noted before and will be highlighted within the article below, this tends to bias the survey towards heavy users on unlimited usage plans, but unlimited plans are becoming the norm these days, with now over 30% of DoCoMo users on fixed-price plans.

Note that perhaps interestingly the original Japanese survey uses the term “comic”, not “manga” to describe the picture book format, so please don’t get upset by me using “comic” too!

I’ve personally never downloaded any reading material to my mobile phone, as I love the tangibility of real paper, and squinting at a tiny screen must be tiring on both the eyes and the arms.

SoftBank Mobile have also just recently started advertising that they have over 500 comic titles available for free download.
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goo Research, in conjunction with the Yomiurin Shimbun, published the results of a survey conducted into youth and volunteering and pets. This is the second time there’s been a strange combining of topics by goo Research; last time it was love and comedy.

Demographics

Between the 24th and 26th of April 2007 550 members of goo Research’s online monitor panel completed a private questionnaire. There was an exactly 50:50 split between the sexes, and 35% of the respondents were students, 31% in full time employment, and 11% fulltime homemakers. The occupation (or lack thereof) of the remaining 23% was not reported.

Looking at the results, it is nice to see that a majority have some degree of interest in volunteer activities, with a large minority willing to take part in them. Through the union at work I occasionally see calls for volunteers for river bank clearing, etc and whilst I have an interest in that, I really do not want to do anything for the union as they do very little for me. Last year in fact they tried to get me to volunteer (there is an almost-obligatory volunteering system) to take part in a campaign to get people to vote.
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goo Ranking published a short ranking survey on the topic of which traditional culture people might like to learn. Demographical information is not present. The survey was conducted between the 19th and 20th of April 2007.

For me, I’d like to take up Go (I used to play as a kid) and calligraphy. I think I’d be more of the large-scale kind of guy with a huge broom slapping the ink on the canvas by the gallon in the hope of making up in quantity what I’m lacking in quality.

I’m a bit surprised, I suppose, seeing origami in there (another one I did as a kid) as it doesn’t feel to me like a traditional art. I’ve also never heard of carving Buddhas as being a traditional art! I’ve also once made a fan (badly) and had a day out at a traditional Kyoto Yuzen dyeing factory.

Do you participate in any traditional arts?
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