世論 What Japan Thinks

Just in time for the start of the real summer season (two months or more of 30°C and more days and nights), at the start of July MyVoice looked at the use of deodorants. They got 12,473 valid responses from their private internet-based questionnaire to their monitor group. 54% of the responses were from women, 3% were in their teens, 21% in their twenties, 39% in their thirties, 25% in their forties, and 12% in their fifties.

If anyone asks me what to buy before they come to Japan, my first recommendation is always anti-perspirant; it is, in fact, the only product I get shipped from abroad. Other foreigners suggest that Japanese brands are not so strong, but I suspect it might just be a combination of unfamiliarity with brands ,and that stick or gel type deodorants are almost non-existant here. I have personally only seen tiny almost lipstick-sized tubes that I presume would be pretty useless for any serious application; most of the sales here are, as you can see, of sprays.

There is a belief (or is it a meme? Or nihonjinron) that the Japanese don’t sweat much; whilst I can’t point you to any international surveys or literature to confirm or dismiss that idea, my personal experience is that they do sweat, and often profusely, as on the rush hour train I will often see people with huge beads of sweat even though they have done nothing more than a light stroll to the station. I suspect one contributor to this is the stupidly over-cooled trains (and buildings, etc), as the constant changing from cold to hot to cold mustn’t be kind to the body’s internal temperature regulators. The headline figure indicates that regardless of quantity of sweat produced, the smell of it is a concern to most. Of course, all Japanese could smell but a quarter just don’t care…
Read the rest of this entry »

japan.internet.com recently published a survey conducted by Cross Marketing Inc into telecommunication karaoke. That’s a bit of an ugly term, but it’s the translation my dictionary offers for 通信カラオケ, tsuushin karaoke, or karaoke machines that can connect to a server to download the latest music. Over three days in the middle of July 300 members of Cross Marketing’s monitor team who go to karaoke at least once a year replied to a closed internet questionnaire. As usual for Cross Marketing, there was a 50:50 male-female split, and 20% in each of the five age groups; 18 to 19 years old, twenties, thirties, forties and fifties.

I’ve not been to karaoke for ages and ages; when I was dating, we went quite a few times, but love is deaf as well as blind, so since we got married my wife’s told me that my singing voice is horrible; yes, I knew already that I was tone-deaf (音痴, onchi, or tone-stupid in Japanese), but I lost all confidence after being told that! A fellow foreigner friend of mine also often frequents a karaoke room, partially for the inclusive all-you-can-drink deals and partially to satisfy his love of 演歌, enka, Japanese folk-songs (sort-of anyway; read the link).
Read the rest of this entry »

Today I will present three ranking surveys for the price of one, all on the theme of water usage at home, all carried out by DIMSDRIVE Research as part of their 85th Ranking Survey over the period of about a week at the end of June and start of July. First is using water for drinking at home, next is water for tea and coffee at home, and finally water for cooking at home.

Japan’s tap water is basically safe, but in the big cities it tends to smell a bit due to the various treatments it undergoes. Most restaurants, for example, serve water that at least has been through some sort of treatment, but what exactly they use in their tea is anyone’s guess. At home, we have a built-in water purifier that we use for drinking and tea and coffee, except for when making a large pot of tea (usually 麦茶, mugicha, barley tea) for refrigerating, when we use plain old tap water. The exact reason for this is beyond me. Our previous flat had some nasty black spots (tar or pitch, perhaps) that occasionally flaked off making filtration absolutely necessary.
Read the rest of this entry »

With summer soon upon us, MyVoice surveyed its internet community to see what they thought about dieting. 13,710 people completed the private internet-based questionnaire, with 54% of the sample female, 3% in their teens, 22% in their twenties, 39% in their thirties, 24% in their forties, and 12% in their fifties. This is one survey where I’d love to see the results split by sex, but not so much that I want to pay 36,750 yen for the full report!

Of course, whether or not any of the one in five who were dieting really need to is another question; shaping up exercises or even just posture lessons is all the help the average Japanese person needs. I see too many borderline (or even over the edge) anorexic-looking women here; there’s few things I find more off-putting than seeing a woman with less meat on their legs than in a KFC party bucket staggering about in a pair of too-high-heels with toes turned in, knees forward and bum back to counterbalance, half tripping ever other step as their ankles buckle under the strain.
Read the rest of this entry »

japan.internet.com recently published the results of a survey by Cross Marketing Inc into the use of mobile phone alarms. Over two days at the end of June they interviewed 300 members of their monitor panel by means of a private internte-based questionnaire. As is usual for Cross Marketing with their small sample sizes, both the sex and ages of the sample were blanced. 50:50 male and female, and 20% in each age band from teens to fifties.

You may recall a previous survey I translated where the alarm feature was found to be the most-used function excluding the basics of voice and mail. I can’t say I use mine very much – only when I have something to do the same day and can’t be bothered making a full schedule entry. I don’t know for sure whether or not there is a snooze feature on my phone, but I suspect there is a key somewhere to press. Usually during the week I have a proper alarm clock, although more often than not I awake before it, but the weekends my wife sets mobile alarms for the both of us.
Read the rest of this entry »

MyVoice recently surveyed its internet monitor community to see what they were currently learning. At the start of June 13,584 people completed the private internet-based questionnaire. 54% of the sample was female, 3% was in their teens, 22% in their twenties, 39% in their thirties, 24% in their forties, and 12% in their fifties. Note that “studying” covers practicing too.

I’m currently studying Japanese (obviously!), both translation and kanji; if I had any free time I’d join a Go school and do a correspondence course in ペン字, penji, which is the art of writing longhand (or cursive, or joined-up handwriting) in a neat manner. With the roman alphabet, you only have two or three strokes per character, but for kanji with up to 20 or so strokes for even common characters, methods of writing quickly but legibly are very important. My current handwriting, is a horribly unbalanced child-like scrawl. And my Japanese writing isn’t any better – I wish that statement was actually a joke!
Read the rest of this entry »

infoPLANT recently performed a survey by their usual means of a self-selecting public poll available through the iMode menus regarding eating out. 5,926 people successfully completed the questionnaire between June 6th and 13th of this year, of which 67.2% were female.

I’ve previously translated a more detailed poll on eating out habits, but this one contains perhaps a few new revelations that weren’t apparent from the earlier survey. For me, I feel anything over 2,000 yen is a bit dear, and 2,500 yen is definitely pushing the boat out, although it must be noted that we don’t drink alcohol and usually only have just the one soft drink each, often free or discounted within the course menu we usually choose.

I often use discount coupons from free papers like Hot Pepper, but I didn’t realise that they were so favoured by women. It’s also interesting to note that although men eat out much more frequently than women, most of the restaurants I go to the ratio is more like 80% or more female. An interesting future survey may be on the type of restaurant people frequent; men appear to me to spend their time in pubs or the Japanese equivalent of a Greasy Spoon.

Since word of mouth is the top way of finding where to eat, why doesn’t someone start an English-language Japan restaurant Web two point naught CGM AJAX thingamajig?
Read the rest of this entry »

At the start of June MyVoice surveyed its internet monitor community to find out about their use of internet auction sites. 14,023, 54% female, successfully completed their private internet-based questionnaire. 3% of the sample were in their teens, 22% in their twenties, 39% in their thirties, 24% in their forties, and 12% in their fifties.

Internet auctions is one thing I’ve never done, although I did have two ideas for businesses there than never took off. The first probably required a partner in the USA or UK for bulk shipping, but would consist of buying Hello Kitty mobile phone straps and other cheap nick-nacks, charging $5 on top for postage, and raking in most of the profit, even if sold for list price, on the overcharging for handling. The second was to open lots of bank and credit card accounts all over the place and get the free cartoon character (or even perfumed) plastic cards and pass books, promptly close the accounts then sell the stuff on eBay. Shortly before implementing the scheme, however, I discovered that this was probably highly illegal and would also destroy any credit rating I might have in Japan!
Read the rest of this entry »

japan.internet.com, in conjuction with Cross Marketing Inc, published the results of a survey into communication over the internet. They interviewed 300 computer users at the start of June regarding this question, with exactly half of the group of each sex. Similarly, teenagers made up 20.0% of the respondents, as did those in their twenties, thirties, forties and fifties.

For me personally, as a bit reclusive, I’ve found blogging a great way of meeting people. I’ve made – well, I’ll not number them in case people start counting, but I’ve had a good few other contacts which I should follow up to make them into at least mail friends. I’ve been very pleasantly surprised at the amount of positive postings and private mail I’ve received, but if you feel I’ve not been replying as much as you might expect (or just not at all!), I’ve got your mail on file and this blog really does eat up 90% of my home PC time, and I’m rather introverted about everything anyway, so sorry folks!
Read the rest of this entry »

japan.internet.com recently republished a report from Cross Marketing Inc on how people’s kanji ability has been affected by computers. They interviewed 300 people in the middle of June via a private internet questionnaire. Exactly half the sample was of each sex, and similarly exactly a sixth were in their teens (well, aged 18 or 19), a sixth in their twenties, and so on up to the sixties.

I’m not too surprised by the results of this survey. Informational programs on TV have occasionally mentioned how the wide availability of mobile phone email and the rich dictionaries within the handsets has encouraged people to convert more words to kanji, even those words that use characters outside the recommended set. In addition, with kanji more text can be crammed into a message than if things were spelt out fully in kana.
Read the rest of this entry »