世論 What Japan Thinks

[part 1] [part 2]

DIMSDRIVE recently published the results of a survey into probably the biggest event in the school year (and a minor event in the company calendar), Sports Day. Over a week at the end of September and the start of October they interviewed 6,566 people from their internet monitor group. 60.1% were female, 1.1% in their teens, 16.4% in their twenties, 40.5% in their thirties, 30.6% in their forties, 8.5% in their fifties, and 2.9% aged sixty or older. Since this survey was mainly about their children’s sports day, the additional children-related data was 11.7% had infant-aged children, 13.6% had children in nursery or kindergarten, 9.7% in first or second year of primary (elementary) school (i.e. aged 6 or 7), 9.9% in third or fourth year primary education, 9.8% in fifth or sixth year, 12.9% in middle school, and 14.4% in high school or older. 46.5% had no children at all.

The Sports Day is also a big day for English language teachers, of course, but recently, as can be seen in Q6SQ5, since so many people are carrying video cameras, applause is limited since people have their hands full, so there’s a much poorer atmosphere surrounding the events. I’ve been party to interesting technical discussions surrounding this and other issues that crop up regarding recording Sports Day, but the details have to remain secret for now…
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[part 1] [part 2]

DIMSDRIVE recently published the results of a survey into probably the biggest event in the school year (and a minor event in the company calendar), Sports Day. Over a week at the end of September and the start of October they interviewed 6,566 people from their internet monitor group. 60.1% were female, 1.1% in their teens, 16.4% in their twenties, 40.5% in their thirties, 30.6% in their forties, 8.5% in their fifties, and 2.9% aged sixty or older. Since this survey was mainly about their children’s sports day, the additional children-related data was 11.7% had infant-aged children, 13.6% had children in nursery or kindergarten, 9.7% in first or second year of primary (elementary) school (i.e. aged 6 or 7), 9.9% in third or fourth year primary education, 9.8% in fifth or sixth year, 12.9% in middle school, and 14.4% in high school or older. 46.5% had no children at all.

There is in fact a national holiday for sports event, 体育の日, taiiku no hi, Health Sports Day, usually the 10th of October (although this year it was on the 9th, for some reason), celebrating the day the 1964 Tokyo Olympics opened. I’ve once taken part in our company sports evening, which consisted of many childish games, beer, and cheap boxed lunches, all performed with the PA blaring out tunes like Colonel Bogie. Never again!
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In yesterday’s Seikyo Shimbun as part of an introduction to Warm Biz there was a chart of electricity usage in the average Japanese home, derived from data by JCCCA, Japan Centre for Climate Change Action, and their Low-Energy Home Electrics Fact Sheet.

Device	Percentage
Air conditioning	24.9%
Lighting	16.2%
Refrigerator	15.5%
Television	9.9%
Electric carpet	4.4%
Electric toilet seat	4.1%
Clothes drier	2.9%
Dishwasher and drier	1.7%
Other	20.3%

Lighting seems very high to me, and you’ll perhaps notice that washing machines is not noted: in Japan, most washers use cold, not hot water, so they need no heating element for water.

NEPRO Japan recently conducted a survey into people’s views on children carrying mobile phones. Over one day at the start of October they gathered 3,716 valid responses by means of a self-selecting public survey available through the menuing system of all three major mobile phone carriers, namely DoCoMo’s iMode, au’s EZweb, and Softbank’s Yahoo! Keitai. Demographically, the respondents were 59% female, 2% in their teens, 36% in their twenties, 44% in their thirties, and 18% aged forty or older.

Q4 is an interesting question. As far as I know, in the UK there are a lot of rules regarding the provision of facilities for the blocking of content that mobile phones can access, but I have never heard of such a facility in Japan. The worry about running up big bills is a bit unnecessary, however, as all mobile providers have plans that can cap usage at specific costs. Going shopping online seems another strange worry, but perhaps it also means signing up for too many services with monthly fees?
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MyVoice conducted a number of surveys of their internet community at the start of October, and one of these was on the subject of delivery food. 12,313 members successfully completed the questionnaire, with 54% of the respondents female, 2% in their teens, 21% in their twenties, 41% in their thirties, 24% in their forties, and 12% in their fifties.

One surprising omission from Q2 is that great Kansai staple, okonomiyaki. When I used to regularly visit one shop (now sadly closed down), they’d always be two or three orders for delivery processed whilst I was eating.

Talking of okonomiyaki, I was watching some English language educational program on NHK a few months ago, and in their random foreigner talking on the topic of the lesson segment, they had a guy walking to work in Tokyo, telling us how he passed down a street with restaurants selling local Edo delicacies like the aforementioned okonomiyaki. NHK must have deliberately left that in to entertain the locals by laughing at the ignorant foreigner.
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japan.internet.com recently reported on a survey conducted by Cross Marketing Inc into New Year postcards. They got 300 valid responses to their private internet-based survey from their monitor pool; exactly half were male, and 20.0% in their teens, 20.0% in their twenties, and so on up to 20.0% in their fifties.

New Year postcards are even more required than Christmas cards were back home, so this good showing by PCs and mobiles is quite surprising for me. I will look out for another survey that might indicate to whom people plan to send the virtual and real greetings to see if there is any pigeon-holing of contacts.

It’s getting time to decide on our New Year postcards; although we usually do most communication by email, there’s something tangible about a real 年賀状はがき, nengajou hagaki, New Year postcard that electronics just can’t replace. We will order the front design from some internet site, most likely, and do the addressing by specialist New Year postcard software.

For your information, next year is the Year of the 亥, inoshishi, or wild boar.
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infoPLANT recently looked at the purchase and consumption of canned and other prepared coffee – this excluded take away coffee, I believe. They gathered their self-selecting survey by means on a menu option through the DoCoMo iMode menuing system. Over a week at the start of October 6,480 successfully completed the survey, with 65.7% of the respondents being female.

News of a new, heavily promoted can brand entitled Deepresso is doing the rounds of the blogs right now, but I personally prefer a hot and steamy Sixty-Nine in the mornings to get me going.

A bit of coffee trivia – apparently “morning service”, a discounted breakfast most coffee shops do consisting of a hot drink, perhaps toast, boiled egg, three lettuce leaves or a hot dog, was initially introduced in the ’50s or ’60s by a restaurant in Namba, Osaka, where it consisted of a cup of coffee and two cigarettes. Nowadays, although they no longer offer the cancer sticks along with the drink, the fug in the average joint allows one to secondhandedly inhale.

Talking of cancer, if you’re a non-smoker, may I suggest that you avoid Roots brand coffee, as that is made by Japan Tobacco.
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Back to one of my favourite subjects, Japanese teeth! This time, it was MyVoice who conducted the survey of 13,741 members of their internet monitor panel. The survey was conducted at the start of June this year, with 46% of the respondents male, 3% in their teens, 22% in their twenties, 39% in their thirties, 24% in their forties, and 12% in their fifties or older.

I’m just finished my regular dental check, although this time due to various reasons it was about seven months since the last one, so I needed one filling replaced due to some decay beneath it. All in all, including ultrasonic cleaning, the bill came to just over 3,000 yen with bog-standard Japanese national medical insurance.
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infoPLANT recently released the results of an opinion poll they conducted into what correspondence courses people were currently taking. They used their usual method to gather respondents, namely a publicly available questionnaire through NTT DoCoMo’s iMode menuing system. Over a week at the end of September and the start of October 4,819 self-selecting people completed the survey successfully. 64.3% of the sample was female. Age breakdowns may be seen later.

For those wanting to better themselves in Japanese, applications for this year’s JLPT, Japanese Language Proficiency Test, have already closed, but there’s still time to apply for next February’s 漢字検定, kanji kentei, the thrice per year kanji level test, which is a fun and useful mode of study.
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At the start of September MyVoice surveyed their internet monitor pool to find out their bicycle usage habits. 13,091 people successfully complete the private opinion poll; 46% were male, 3% in their teens, 21% in their twenties, 38% in their thirties, 25% in their forties, and 13% aged fifty or older.

It may be interesting to refer to a survey from last year on carrying children on bicycles. Riding is downright dangerous for not just the rider, but pedestrians and cars too, as rules of the road (or pavement) are mostly ignored. The average rider seems to treat ringing the bell or squeeking the brakes as a sign to everyone that says “Get out of the way or I’ll run you over!”

Note that the standard bicycle in Q2 is most often a heavy, single gear machine with front basket and very unsubtle brakes. When I was a kid, the nearest thing was the boring old three-speed Raleigh, which was probably more technically sophisticated than the current Japanese models!
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