世論 What Japan Thinks

[part 1] [part 2]

DIMSDRIVE Research published the results of a very timely survey on a subject I’ve been keen to learn more about, how the Japanese spend Christmas. Over a week at the end of November 4,312 people from their internet monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 45.8% of the sample was male, 63.5% were married, and 1.1% were in their teens, 17.1% in their twenties, 35.1% in their thirties, 27.0% in their forties, 14.4% in their fifties, and 5.3% aged sixty or older. The second half of the survey looks at Santa and the meaning of Christmas.

As for people who still believe in Santa, I suppose (or at least I hope) this means the number who believe in the spirit of giving and receiving, rather than in an actual fat guy coming down your chimney.

I’m surprised by the 13.2% who say it is a time to celebrate Christ’s birth (yes, yes, I know it is actually a pagan holiday that has been usurped), but whether they are answering in respect of their own beliefs or to demonstrate that they do really know that for other people it’s more than just an excuse to indulge to excess, I do not know.

It’s also interesting to note in the final table that Christian holidays, or perhaps more correctly just holidays imported from the West, are more significant than most of the traditional days. The reasons for this may be an interesting topic for future study.
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[part 1] [part 2]

DIMSDRIVE Research published the results of a very timely survey on a subject I’ve been keen to learn more about, how the Japanese spend Christmas. Over a week at the end of November 4,312 people from their internet monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 45.8% of the sample was male, 63.5% were married, and 1.1% were in their teens, 17.1% in their twenties, 35.1% in their thirties, 27.0% in their forties, 14.4% in their fifties, and 5.3% aged sixty or older. This first half of the survey looks specifically at what people will be spending money on.

Japan’s Christmas is a funny beast; gaijin blogs are awash with tales of KFC being the ultimate Xmas meal, Xmas cake being a strawberry cream sponge, Xmas Eve as a night at the love a posh hotel, and of course Christmas Day being just another day in the office. How close these popular images reflect reality will now be revealed!

Christmas back home was always a family event with almost no religious overtones, and although I naturally really enjoyed spending time with the family and I probably miss it more than anything else being in Japan, all the rest of the trappings from presents to carols was just a nuisance, so now in Japan I feel them doubly so.

Bah, humbug! Merry Stuffing Your Face Day!
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With most train lines stopping around 12 midnight and not resuming until 5 am, there is always the danger of getting one over the eight and missing the last train. So, with this in mind, goo Ranking published the results of a survey conducted towards the end of October into what people did if they had to wait for the first train home. As usual for goo Rankings, there is no demographic information, and scores are the percentages of the top ranking choice.

Note that getting a taxi home is usually an infeasible option as taxis are horrendously expensive once you get past a few kilometres. Also note that family resturants tend to have all-you-can-drink soft drink options, so it is easy to hole up all night nursing a bottomless cup of coffee. The times I’ve missed (sometimes on purpose!) the last train home I’ve ended up in a karaoke box or even walking home, even though it was a good ten kilometres or so!
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DIMSDRIVE Research recently released the results of a poll into the use of commercial odour reduction or elimination chemicals. They interviewed 5,453 members of their monitor pool in the middle of October by means of a private internet-based opinion poll. 56.9% of the sample was female, 67.0% married, and 53.4% of the whole sample had children. 13.8% lived alone, 24.2% with one other person, 48.4% with two or three others, and 13.6% with four or more people. The age profile was 0.9% in their teens, 14.5% in their twenties, 33.5% in their thirties, 30.8% in their forties, 15.0% in their fifties, and 5.3% aged sixty or older.

With only 7.0% of people noticing that their house smells, this compares favourably with those who don’t worry about their own smell. I’m surprised at cooking smells being so low, as it tends to be what I notice most often in other people’s houses, but perhaps it is just down to my unfamiliarity with Japanese cooking smells, especially as we run an almost vegetarian kitchen with very little deep frying or grilling.
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japan.internet.com recently published the results of a survey conducted at the start of November by goo Research into the use of scheduling tools. 1,089 people from their monitor group, 43.2% male, successfully completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 21.2% of the survey group was in their twenties, 44.4% in their thirties, 24.4% in their forties, and 10.0% in their fifties.

We have groupware at work which has quite a nice reminder feature, but the rest of the time perhaps 10% of my private schedule is recorded in my mobile phone, with the other 90% delegated to my wife! She uses both a tabletop calendar (this year is a free Hello Kitty one we got as a present from a print shop when we ordered death in the family postcards; a rather incongruous gift, I thought) and her mobile phone for that.
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infoPLANT recently performed a survey into the consumption of news. Over a week at the end of October 5,973 people, 62.1% female, chose to complete the public survey available through iMode.

Although infoPLANT used its usual method of collecting self-selecting respondents through NTT DoCoMo’s iMode mobile phone menu system, thus resulting in a bias towards those who are heavy users of mobile phone, the data forms an interesting point of comparision to a recent translation of a more balanced survey of the news consumption habits of the average person. We cqan immediately see from the pie charts that there are a quarter less daily paper reader amongst the mobile phoners, but even though there are presumably a lot of heavy users in this sample, newspapers still outdo all internet-based web services put together.

The survey also looks at iChannel, a new non-free but low cost service from DoCoMo that pushes headlines to mobile phones. I tried out a free preview of it but it seemed rather ordinary, and being a stingey git, paying a couple of hundred yen per month was just a bit too much for me!
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DIMSDRIVE recently published the results of a survey into what people get up to in the bathroom. They interviewed 6,436 people from their internet monitor group by means of a private internet-based poll. 41.3% of the sample was male and by age 1.0% were in their teens, 17.2% in their twenties, 37.1% in their thirties, 27.4% in their forties, 12.7% in their fifties, and 4.6% aged sixty or older. This is a subject where I’ve previously translated another survey, so it might be useful as a cross-reference.

There are lots of interesting figures here that back up various preconceptions that I think many of us have about the Japanese love of bathing. I used to just have a quick shower or bath once or twice a week before I married, but I’ve been coerced into washing every day, and now quite miss a bath if for some reason I can’t have one, such as when on holiday. However, I only usually just jump into the tub for a minute or less to warm myself up just before bed time, with the majority of the bathroom time spent under the shower.
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Recently, infoPLANT, in conjunction with C-NEWS, released the results of a closed internet survey into the consumption of supplements. Over two days at the very end of October they interviewed 1,500 people, 750 male and 750 female, and 300 in each of the age groups from the twenties to the sixties and older. This 50:50 sex split was present in each of the age groups too.

A little anecdote – a friend of mine had his blood lipid (cholesterol) level recorded as just over the safe limits (although Japanese safe levels are lower than Western levels, apparently) and all he did way take two Nature Made fish oil capsules a day, still maintaining the same diet otherwise, and after six months his levels had dropped 10% back into the safe zone.
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Since my favourite delivery food survey translation seems to have gone down quite well (unlike some of the mayonnaise combinations), let’s look at goo Ranking’s survey to find out what are people’s favourite topping on their delivery favourite, pizza. Towards the end of October they collected the votes from a public poll. The top vote getter gets 100 points, and all the rest pro-rated relative to the number one.

My favourite, which features nowhere on this list, is artichokes.
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UPDATE: I have been informed by some of my readers that bukkake may in fact have a second meaning in addition to being a style of topping for noodles. I am currently researching Google to try to confirm this matter; I may be some time.

Last month MyVoice published the results of a survey they conducted amongst their internet monitor group to find out their views on udon. 12,182 people successfully completed an internet-based questionnaire conducted over five days at the start of October. 54% of the sample was female, 2% in their teens, 20% in their twenties, 41% in their thirties, 24% in their forties, and 13% in their fifties.

Udon, thick wheat-based noodles, is one of the two main home-grown noodles in Japan, with soba, a thin noodle made from buckwheat, being the second. Personally, I dislike udon, and even more dislike eating out as my Western manners-sensitive ears find the loud slurping noises from fellow diners extremely off-putting and irritating.

I’ve also heard of none of the regional dishes mentioned in Q1.
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