世論 What Japan Thinks

Before I start, let me say that all astrology is bunk. However, it is in Japan, like everywhere else, big business with frauds highly-talented (at extracting money from gullible individuals) people like Guinness Book of Records best-selling author in her category, the awful Kazuko Hosoki, or the Feng Shui (pronounced to rhyme with “load of old hooie”) “Dr” Copa who will sell you cheap plastic yellow tat guaranteed to increase his your wealth. Oooh, and don’t get me started on blood types!

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There, I feel better now. infoPLANT recently had an open survey available for one week through an iMode menu on the topic of fortunes. As with all the other infoPLANT surveys, the self-selecting nature of it will bias the sample towards heavy iMode users. Over one week in the middle of March, 6,031 people, 32.9% male, completed the mobile web-based questionnaire. I will use the term “horoscope” in this translation to cover all the various types of fortune-telling that the Japanese word 占い, uranai, covers.
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japan.internet.com, in conjuction with goo Research, recently investigated the use of Social Networking Services, or SNS, in Japan. 1,087 members of the goo Research Monitors took part in the internet-based survey. 56.3% of the sample was female; 2.4% were in their teens, 22.9% in their twenties, 39.9% in their thirties, 24.8% in their forties, and 10.0% in their fifties. It may be instructive to compare the results here with those from an earlier survey of SNS that I translated in December.

総務省, soumushou, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, recently released figures that stated there were 7.16 million registered users of SNS (I’m not sure if people registered for two services are counted twice) at the end of March 2006; in the six months from September of 2005 the number of has increased by almost 80%! As well as users increasing, so are the services; in February Yahoo! opened up the beta version of Yahoo 360° and in March Rakuten introduced Rakuten Plaza Links.
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With the Golden Week holidays coming up fast in Japan, goo Ranking published the results of a survey on how long a holiday their regular readers were taking. As with most of the goo Rankings, sex and age demographics are not available; as I understand it the votes were though a presumably anonymous web poll. In the results, the top vote score 100 points, with the relative number of votes for the options expressed as percentage points, I believe.

Golden Week refers to the sequence of holidays at the start of May in Japan; the first holiday, みどりの日, midori no hi, Greenery Day is in fact on the 29th of April but it usually doesn’t technically count as part of Golden Week (don’t ask why!). This day used to be the previous Emporer’s Birthday Holiday, 天皇誕生日, tenno tanjobi, a national holiday (the current one is on the 23rd of December), so when the previous Emperor Showa died, they decided to keep the day as a holiday, so they renamed it to Greenery Day.

Returning to the main topic, the three main holidays start on the 3rd of May with 憲法記念日, kenpo ki’nenbi, Constitution Memorial Day, followed by 国民の休日, kokumin no kyujitsu, National People’s Day on the 4th, then こどもの日, kodomo no hi, Children’s Day on the 5th. In my case, work is shut down for the whole week, plus I’ve booked this Friday off as a personal holiday, so I have ten days off. Note that this means that my posting frequency might decrease next week.
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[part 1] [part 2]

Following on from a previous survey that looked at toothbrush habits, this survey addresses another popular stereotype of the Japanese, the wearing of spectacles. DIMSDRIVE Research interviewed 7,851 members of their internet monitor group, 56.9% female, by means of an internet-based questionnaire. The age demographics were 1.5% teenagers, 20.8% in their twenties, 35.6% in their thirties, 25.6% in their forties, 11.7% in their fifties, and 4.8% aged sixty or older.

I found it a bit strange that many of the women voted for seemed to be more a list of sexy women who have once or twice been photographed wearing glasses rather than a list of regular wearers who suit them.

Also, Mari’s Diary recently published an entry regarding eyeglass fetishes.
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[part 1] [part 2]

Following on from a previous survey that looked at toothbrush habits, this survey addresses another popular stereotype of the Japanese, the wearing of spectacles. DIMSDRIVE Research interviewed 7,851 members of their internet monitor group, 56.9% female, by means of an internet-based questionnaire. The age demographics were 1.5% teenagers, 20.8% in their twenties, 35.6% in their thirties, 25.6% in their forties, 11.7% in their fifties, and 4.8% aged sixty or older.

If you are shopping for glasses in Japan, one thing to watch out for is the chains with fixed-price offers; quite often the frames available are rather limited, and the extras, such as less Coke bottle-like lenses or anti-glare coating soon add up. In fact, my wife got a pair of prismatic lenses with a nice imported frame from a wee private shop cheaper than I got my supposed 7,000 yen set from a big chain – once I added in the test, frames, coating, etc the price quadrupled. And of course, beware of shop owners shooing you away.
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[part 1] [part 2]

goo Research recently conducted a survey to see what people thought about eating out. 2,195 people from the goo Research monitors answered a private internet survey. 48.6% of the sample was male, 18.1% were teenagers, 17.5% were in their twenties, 19.8% in their thirties, 21.5% in their forties, 17.0% in their fifties, 4.6% in their sixties, and 1.6% seventy years old or older.

Since this second half is about discount tokens, I’ll introduce probably about the best English-language discount coupon I know, for Hakkakuan in Daimaru, Osaka. I’ve used it twice, and depending on which staff you get, you get either both of the discounts or have to choose one. Get there just before 5pm and you can get an early dinner at lunchtime prices, including all you can eat silken tofu. Some of the set menus are all vegetarian. Next, whenever you eat out make sure to get a point card from the restaurant if they have one. Many places have such a scheme, and the discounts available amount to usually 5% to 10% off.
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[part 1] [part 2]

goo Research recently conducted a survey to see what people thought about eating out. 2,195 people from the goo Research monitors answered a private internet survey. 48.6% of the sample was male, 18.1% were teenagers, 17.5% were in their twenties, 19.8% in their thirties, 21.5% in their forties, 17.0% in their fifties, 4.6% in their sixties, and 1.6% seventy years old or older.

For me, lunchtime is usually bread from a local bread shop; we have a subsidised canteen, but I have never got used to slurping, and I dislike the school lunch atmosphere of the place! I would personally define my special meals out as either work parties or, if it is with wifey, going out explicitly to eat and spending more than 2,000 yen each, which would put me in the four to five times a year bracket or so. One nice place for special meals is 梅の花, Ume no Hana, “Plum Blossom”, a posh tofu place. The one in Kobe Motomachi (and that part of Kobe has a lovely collection of old solid stone buildings, rather a rarity in Japan) has excellent views over the harbour and mountains, and the private rooms make for a wonderful date!
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In January, DIMSDRIVE Research interviewed by means of an internet-based questionnaire 1,454 people, 59.2% male, to find out what people do to get rid of a hangover. The Japanese for hangover is 二日酔い, futsukayoi, “two days drunk”, which I think is a wonderfully descriptive term!

I find the whole subject of Japan and drink fascinating, and whilst I’m still to find the one survey that confirms my suspicion that whilst overall alcohol consumption in Japan may be lower than in the West, there are comparable, if not higher, figures for regular drinkers, and more worryingly, regular heavy drinkers. Alcohol abuse is still not recognised here as a societal problem; I’m not some sort of Puritan calling for prohibition, of course, just someone who wishes booze was taken seriously.

As a small anecdote, in one of our company magazines we got a depression checklist, and one of the signs was not wishing to join in with office drinking sessions; for me, these events cause me stress, and paying 4,000 to 5,000 yen to sit in a usually very smokey pub for two hours as people continute to talk shop all around whilst making do with a veggie option that is a poor excuse for a meal is not really my idea of fun; I’d rather be snuggling up with wifey under the kotatsu watching the telly at home!
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japan.internet.com, in conjunction with Cross Marketing, conducted an internet-based survey amongst 300 internet users, 50.3% female, to see what internet habits they had. 16.7% of the sample was aged 18 or 19, and 16.6% were from each of the other decades of life from the twenties to the sixties. I’m not sure how exactly work computers are suppposed to figure in this survey.

I think the results on SNS usage are particularly interesting – I’ve felt to some degree that SNSs are basically a more private form of blogging, so I’d love to see a more detailed survey on why people participate in SNS, or write blogs for that matter!

Personally, on the whole I switch on my home PC in the late evening (say past 9pm or so), and with this blog requiring rather a lot of work, I have little time for other activities bar mail.
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DIMSDRIVE Research recently carried out a detailed survey on what people thought regarding electronic dictionaries. They are referring to single-purpose portable dictionaries, not PDAs, mobile phones or other general-purpose portable devices with dictionary software present. They surveyed 7,327 members of their monitor group, 56.9% female, by means of an internet-based questionnaire. The sample consisted of 1.1% in their teens, 17.4% in their twenties, 34.8% in their thirties, 28.2% in their forties, 13.4% in their fifties, and 5.1% aged 60 or older.

A word of advice for any would-be dictionary purchasers – first note that this survey is of Japanese people, so the ones they find popular, even though they may use the English lookup features often, does not necessarily mean they are best for foreigners. In fact, I personally would not recommend an electronic dictionary as the primary source for new learners of Japanese; they require a decent level of Japanese to get the best out of them, and they tend to be rather terse, especially for example sentences. When I was learning, I found the Kodansha’s Furigana Japanese Dictionary excellent, as did most of the Amazon reviewers, by the looks of things! I’ve got a slightly old Canon WordTank 3000 which I find very good and easy-to-use, but perhaps newer models will have more expansive dictionaries?
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