世論 What Japan Thinks

DISMDRIVE Research released their 81st Ranking Research results, and one of these was a look at what folklore or superstitions people worry about. 4,597 people replied with the single (I think) superstition that they pay most attention to. 2,383 of the respondents, or 51.8%, were male.

This is a fun one for me, as the folk traditions here are often very different from home; I have never heard here of walking under a ladder being unlucky (probably because all ladders get coned off and have two guys waving batons to steer you round the obstacle), urinating on a bee sting seems a very popular (but totally ineffective) antidote, and PET bottles lined up outside houses to scare off cats don’t work.

Note that effect of black cats crossing your path is…umm, I’m not sure any more! Back home in Scotland it was good luck (I think – my memory’s going!) but in Japan it’s bad luck, according to this survey. I remember the Tom and Jerry cartoons where they’d have a black cat causing bad luck, so perhaps that’s the American belief. This random web page says that Japan is good luck, so I am now totally confused!
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I found this entertaining survey performed by the rather strangely named “Almost Daily ITOI Newspaper” (HOBO NIKKAN ITOI SHINBUN) on what people usually carry in their bags. The demographics are not very well defined, but over a period of five days perhaps sometime last month, around 40,000 people answered a questionnaire (web based?) with around 25,000 valid replies received. Within that sample there is significant number who don’t carry bags. Neither the sex nor age breakdown is noted.

The survey results listed the top 60 answers (including sketches of each item, for those who can’t read Japanese but want to see the full list) with a short paragraph about each result written in an extremely casual chatty style, almost like blank verse. For the sake of brevity, I’ll skip many of the lower ranked items.
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In a survey performed over a week at the end of May, infoPLANT looked at how the Japanese brush their teeth. They used their usual method, a self-selecting questionnaire presented through the DoCoMo iMode menu system. They got 6,585 valid responses to the survey, with 67.0% of the sample female.

The state of Japanese teeth are one of common stereotypes one hears of, and a topic that I have featured before, in a translation of a survey on this topic last year by MyVoice.

I’m surprised that about three in ten brush soon after getting up, when after breakfast would be better, I believe; and less women brush before going to bed rather than after breakfast, although perhaps if those brushing at bath time, which is traditionally just before bed time, is added in, we would see the last thing at night figure would be higher.
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MyVoice decided to do a totally unseasonal poll last month, surveying 14,676 people from their community by means of a private internet poll about enjoying autumn. 54% of the sample was female, 4% in their teens, 21% in their twenties, 38% in their thirties, 25% in their forties, and 12% in their fifties.

This survey mentions a book and film called “秋の夜長”, aki no yonaga, “The Long Autumn Nights”, but I have an awful feeling I am falling into a linguistic or cultural hole, as WWWJDIC has an example sentence “秋の夜長は読書にまさるものはありません。” translated as ”
There is no use feeling sorry about it.” I might literally translate that as “There’s nothing like reading ‘The Long Autumn Nights’”, but there seems to be no such book or film on Amazon. Perhaps the true meaning is just to spend the long nights lost in a book or a video? Oh well, I’m here to try to improve my Japanese, so I might as well make my mistakes in public.

UPDATE: It seems that “The Long Autumn Nights” is just an expression, but the Japanese love of putting things into quotation marks was throwing me!
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I’ve recently come across Japan Probe, an interesting blog on things Japanese that I can recommend you all pay a visit. I especially liked his translation of the top 100 favourite historical figures, which you might find surprising.

He also highlights, as does the BBC, how sleep deprevation costs Japan $30 billion per year. I don’t think that sales of these energy drinks make up for that loss! At my office, for instance, at least one person regularly falls asleep during meetings, and morning mass meetings have about 10% to 15% of the crowd nodding off in their chairs.

Next, we subscribed to Cat’s Heart, a cat care magazine which features the occassional reader survey. This month I learnt when 460 readers were surveyed, 62.6% reported their cats can open doors or drawers, etc; for vet bills, a vaccine averaged 5,222 yen amongst the 286 owners asked, and getting your kitten fixed costs 14,448 yen for boys and 21,449 yen for girls according to 190 and 180 owners.

Finally, this week Trivia no Izumi decided to look at if astrologers would tell the fortune of animals. In their usual deadpan style, they first got three identical newly-hatched chickens, gave them three different names, and took them off to get read. After the astrologer had rabbited on for a bit, the interviewer asked what happens if we rename them all to the same name. Next, three eels (I think they were eels) were borrowed from a hatchery attached to a restaurant. One reading later, all three ended up in eel pie. A tropical fish got read, then the aphid in the tank with it, which we were assured would have a long life. The fish promptly ate it. Finally, someone volunteered to read four beansprouts and went on about how one had a great future as an estate agent. The resultant statistic was that assuming their palms got crossed with sufficient silver (3,000 to 4,000 yen for 15 minutes seemed the going rate), 97 out of the 100 asked would do readings for animals.

In their 72nd Ranking Research questionnaire, DIMSDRIVE Research took a look at what Japanese people said they did before they went to sleep. They interviewed 5,298 people from their internet monitor group, 50.3% male, about their habits at the end of March this year.

You will notice that no-one mentions interacting with one’s partner, even just a cuddle or a chat, as what they do when they can’t sleep. Whether this is an uncommon practice or if this and more saucy answers were weeded out, I do not know.
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I saw two surveys recently that perhaps didn’t get as much press as they should have, so this is my attempt to redress the balance. The two subjects were comparing the expectations of Koreans and Japanese for the 2006 FIFA World Cup™, and the perception of body image and beauty amongst asian women (found via 3Yen).
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Following on from yesterday’s survey where we learnt that the Japanese on the whole will be watching the 2006 FIFA World Cup™ at home, MyVoice also surveyed their community at the start of May to find out what they thought about snacking, perhaps whilst watching the football on the TV. 14,171 people responded to their private internet survey. 46% were male, 22% were in their twenties, 40% in their thirties, 25% in their forties, and 13% in their fifties.

The particular type of snacks considered is おつまみ, otsumami, a word that refers to finger food that is consumed with a drink, usually of an alcoholic variety. When exactly a snack becomes an otsumami is one of these mysteries of the Orient; does a biscuit with a cup of tea count? A large slice of cake doesn’t seem to, but how small does it have to be to become an otsumami? An individually wrapped shop-bought cake slice counts but a home-baked and cut doesn’t? Who knows!

For more information about the drinks that might be consumed whilst snacking at home, please consult my earlier translation of a survey into alcohol at home.
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With the rainy season soon approaching (or already approached, if you live in Okinawa), the fifth of Japan’s unique four seasons, MyVoice surveyed their community to find out what they thought regarding umbrellas. At the start of May they got 14,823 replies to their web-based questionnaire. 54% of the sample was female, 4% were in their teens, 21% in their twenties, 39% in their thirties, 24% in their forties, and 12% aged fifty or older.

I own, or at least frequently use perhaps four brollies; my most commonly used is one from Huis Ten Bosch, followed by an extremely tatty fold-up tartan effort I keep in the office for emergencies. My favourite is a Tarepanda one, and I have a slightly posh fold-up brollie with a street scene of Berlin on it.
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MyVoice surveyed their monitor community at the start of April this year to find out what they thought about detox. 15,145 members responded to the internet-based questionnaire; 46% of them were male, and 4% were in their teens, 22% in their twenties, 39% in their thirties, 24% in their forties, and 11% in their fifties.

The Japanese do seem to love their fad diets and other general health quackery. Germanium sticky pads do seem rather popular these days, replacing the rotating magnet as the most useless product heavily promoted on TV, although these neckbands of titanium are still heavily touted, and I saw an ad at the weekend suggesting that germanium ones are going to be big. I expect the Japan World Cup team to be sporting some of these wastes of cash in Germany next month.
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