世論 What Japan Thinks

Since Valentine’s Day is looming large on the horizon, let’s take a look at a survey of the MyVoice community about how their Valentine’s day was last year. They received 15,003 replies to their internet questionnaire, with 57% or 8,571 of the respondents female. Almost 40% of the sample size was in their thirties, and in addition 5% were teenagers, 24% in their twenties, 22% in their forties, and 11% aged fifty and over.

First, a quick background on St Valentine’s Day in Japan; on this day, the women buy men presents only – the men’s turn comes around on White Day, March 14th (and I’ll be presenting a translation of a similar survey on that topic presently) – but they do not buy for their love only, they should also buy for their bosses, colleagues, and others, this being another example of the formalised tipping that goes on in Japan.
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DIMSDRIVE Research recently carried out a survey on free presents given away with foodstuffs, a rather popular method of promotion here in Japan. They surveyed 5,925 people, 2,410 male, from all over the country by means of an internet-based questionnaire in mid-December. The average age of the men was 40.2 years old, and of the women 35.7.

A gaijin ex-colleague of mine did collect the cards for some series or other – I forgotton the name of it, but it wasn’t one of the mass market animes. He bought one or two boxes of the chocolates and dutifully chomped his way through the whole lot at work, not ever offering me a single one, although he assured me the chocolate was disgusting.

I occasionally buy bottled drinks that come with free gifts if they have a nice strap to give away. Ocha Ken was an excellent series, although I only bought two bottles. Hopefully they revive it this summer. At the back of a cupboard somewhere is a dozen or so scented tea candles from Sokenbicha (sokenbicha looks really ugly in romaji; 爽健美茶 is much nicer!) that I really should light one day!
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[part 1 | part 2]

DIMSDRIVE Research recently carried out a survey on free presents given away with foodstuffs, a rather popular method of promotion here in Japan. They surveyed 5,925 people, 2,410 male, from all over the country by means of an internet-based questionnaire in mid-December. The average age of the men was 40.2 years old, and of the women 35.7.

First a quick Japanese lesson! The word used for these free presents is 食玩, shokugan, which as of the time of writing doesn’t appear in any online Japanese to English dictionary, but hopefully that will soon be rectified by Jim Breen and his WWWJDIC. I’ll use the term “free gift” as the translation of the term for the purposes of this post.

Next, a British English to American English lesson! “Sweetie” is “candy”, “rubbish” is “trash”.

The picture up top, taken from my mobile phone, so excuse the poor quality, is of my PC case at work. The figures all came free with Diet Coke through various promotions surrounding One Piece, Lupin III and Dragonball Z.
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I have translated this slightly old survey from Hi-Ho Marketing Services regarding alcohol consumption and attitudes. This survey was carried out at the end of May 2003 by means of an internet questionnaire amongst 6,055 people from all over the country. 43.4% of the respondents were male, and 67.4% were married. 40.0% were in their thirties, and just a fraction under 25% were in their twenties and their forties.

The second half of this survey sees lots of people engaging in what might be called dangerous drinking habits, such as having a drink or two before bedtime. This casual view of alcohol is backed up by a later question where people identify it as a stress-reducers and a source of fun. In fact, the final question about attitudes misses out many negative issues, such as it being a cause of traffic accidents or domestic violence, leading me to suspect that this survey may have been commisioned by one of beer producers.
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[part 1 | part 2]

I have translated this slightly old survey from Hi-Ho Marketing Services regarding alcohol consumption and attitudes. This survey was carried out at the end of May 2003 by means of an internet questionnaire amongst 6,055 people from all over the country. 43.4% of the respondents were male, and 67.4% were married. 40.0% were in their thirties, and just a fraction under 25% were in their twenties and their forties.

Alcohol consumption is one of the subjects in Japan that I find extremely fascinating; there is no stigma to getting drunk, in fact it is almost a badge of honour to be “strong with alcohol”. However, this manifests itself within society as, I fear, a nation of “kitchen drinkers”, the wonderful Japanese-English term for secret boozers (the term applies to both men and women) who enjoy rather more than they should at home. There is almost no alcohol eduction here, not even something as simple as the western recommendations of no more than 21 units per week (for men), although I have heard doctors on TV recommend taking one or two days off per week. I have spent some time trying to track down official consumption recommendations with little success; Japanese official units of alcohol appear to be larger than Western ones, and even around 150 millilitres of alcohol per day is portrayed as perhaps being dangerous after ten to fifteen years of continuous consumption.

Also, drunks are basically celebrated on television; the most famous is perhaps Kaoru Sugita, a well-known alcoholic“talent” whose tales of her own drunken violence would have her on Oprah or in the Betty Ford clinic in the USA, but here they are just fodder for the entertainment circuit. I also have my suspicions about another middle-aged famous actress and entertainer who I suspect fuels her spontaneity with booze.

I, personally, drink almost never at home – the only times I can remember since I got married was two or three times I got a free sample beer. This weekend I’m off to Oyamazaki distillery, where I am due to get a 300ml sampler of whisky free present from them which will no doubt sit in a cupboard gathering dust until we end up giving it away as a gift!

Anyway, back to the survey.
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Sompo Japan DIY Life Insurance (yes, that is a strange name!) recently released a survey of 500 housewives of salarymen from all around the country regarding the 2005 winter bonus and the family finances, performed over three days at the start of December. The respondents were evenly distributed by age, 125 in each decade of age from their twenties to fifties. Thanks to Mari’s Diary for initially writing about it and bringing it to my attention.

To help explain this survey, there are a few cultural notes that are important. First, Japanese women do tend to run the family budget, giving their husbands a usually rather small pocket money allowance. Next, in Japan most companies have a summer and winter bonus for full-time employees, where the employees usually receive two months salary, plus or minus some amount that reflects company performance, so effectively adding about a third onto the average person’s salary. There is often little or no performance-related element within this bonus. Also, many home loans have low monthly payments plus a twice-yearly bonus element that can be up to 6 months-worth of payments in one go. Finally, note that although it is well-known that one does not tip in Japan, there is an established system of giving those who do things for you gifts of money or other items; for example, even after paying hospital fees, it is quite common to give your surgeon a few hundred thousand yen, in addition to gifts to anyone who came to visit you when in hospital. Perhaps it is this point of view that is responsible for one of my pet hates, game shows being packed with celebrities who almost never give the money to charity, even on big money shows like Who Wants to be a Millionaire.
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Last September, DIMSDRIVE Research questioned 13,855 people, 6,102 male, by means of an internet-based survey about what their least favourite souvenir from overseas was.

The whole business of buying おみやげ, omiyage after trips, whether they be to abroad or to domestic locations, is a horrendously expensive process, often involving buying absolute tat for friends and expensive gifts for those you may respect, of feel obliged by society to respect. My wife, for instance, always has to buy her dentist (who is, in my opinion, at least mildly incompetent) some decent wine or the like; for me personally, receiving a gift is a very impersonal act, as I know from my own experience that the person offering the gift just rushed round Duty Free and picked up a handful of the closest boxes of not-too-expensive nor not-too-cheap chocolates with a picture of their holiday resort on the front to distribute as required. Postcards, on the other hand, I love writing and receiving, as the person has to make some effort to write them, but in Japan, even with the traditions of nengajou postcards for New Year, mochuu cards for deaths, chuugen cards in the summer, etc, holiday postcards are almost never sent, and in fact are very difficult to find even at the big tourist spots.

Anyway, back to the rankings.
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INFOPlant performed a survey at the end of last November to find out people’s views on buying domestic cars. 8,559 people, 38.8% male, filled in a questionnaire available through an iMode menu.

I don’t see myself buying a car of any origin in the forseeable future. Living right in front of the railway station and with all stores offering cheap home delivery for big stuff, it’s so much cheaper to just rent whenever I have a need for my own transport. Also, running costs, or more accurately, sitting in the parking area not running anywhere costs, are pretty steep in Japan, even if the vehicle itself is relatively cheap.
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With today being Japan’s Coming of Age Day – 成人の日, seijin no hi – Seiko (the watch people, as a watch is a popular present for these new adults from their parents) published a survey of soon-to-be adults to see what their views were regarding time. They questioned 517 people, 258 male, 259 female, in the middle of November last year. The demographics were almost exclusively students, numbering 89.6% of the total, with 3.5% part-timers or other temporary staff, just 1.8% in full-time employment, 0.4% self-employed, and 1.0% full-time housewives.

On the TV today, there was the usual coverage of the various Coming of Age Ceremonies, but the one I always find the strangest is the new tradition of spending it at Tokyo Disneyland, where it seems people are not celebrating their last chance at being a child by dancing with Mickey and Minnie, but are instead just continuing their relationship with Disney. Interviews with the participants afterwards always shows a child-like wonder at having touched Mickey and Minnie, the sort of reaction I would associate with a ten-year-old, not a twenty-year-old!
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[part 1] [part 2]

goo Research recently performed a large investigation into HIV and AIDS awareness amongst the Japanese. 38,474 people supplied answers to the questions posted in an open to the public internet-based survey, availiable for a week at the end of November. The demographics were 2.7% 19 or under, 25.4% between 20 and 29, 39.8% from 30 to 39, 22.8% between 40 and 49, 7.2% between 50 and 59, and 2.3% sixty and over.

The second half of the survey sees that there is still a small but perhaps significant minority of those with prejudices against those with HIV and AIDS. There is also a larger minority with some reservations about these matters, but I think that, for instance, there has to be some rational discrimination – obvious ones like disallowing blood transfusions or regulations regarding working in environments where there are the risks of blood contamination are present, such as masks and gloves for food preparation.
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