世論 What Japan Thinks

japan.internet.com recently reported on a survey by Rakuten Research into older men’s awareness of housework.

Demographics

Over the 16th and 17th of May 2013 400 male members of Rakuten Research aged between 50 and 69 years old completed a private internet-based questionnaire. Exactly 25.0% were in each age band 50 to 54, 55 to 59, 60 to 64 and 65 to 69 years old. Furthermore 40.2% were retired, and 69.5% appear to be married.

For my own part, I manage about an hour of housework per weekday, usually doing some shopping on the way home, washing the dishes and folding up the drying. At the weekends, it’s probably closer to two hours as I help with hanging up the washing and airing the quilts.
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Two questions, both silly, today. First up are 10,263 teenage girls from an SNS-like site Candy, asked if they’d rather have bigger boobs or skinnier legs; 86.8% went for legs, just 13.2% for breasts. The photo below is from a shrine dedicated to breasts, apparently…

Next was Research Panel’s Day Research, asking 36,625 people on the 27th of May 2013 which they disliked more; other people’s farts or other people’s burps. This was a surprisingly close 43.8% voting for (or should that be “against”?) burps, and 56.2% hating on bottom burps.

Do House – slogan: Human Networking Industry – recently released a report on the fifth of Japan’s Four Seasons, the Rainy Season, and found, not suprisingly, that it does not have many fans.

Demographics

Over the 22nd and 23rd of April 2013 1,199 members of the Moratame.net&erg; aged between 25 and 69 completed a private web-based questionnaire. No further demographic breakdown was presented.

Rainy season often causes mirth amongst foreigners as the Japanese are proud of their Four Seasons, yet rainy season is a very distinct period from June to mid-July (this year it started a bit early, and here in Osaka it might be officially declared tomorrow). However, the Japanese for rainy season, 梅雨, tsuyu does not include the word season – literally it is Plum Rain, apparently because it coincides with the plum ripening time. I do note, though, that Q1 here translates as “Do you like the Plum Rain Season?”
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goo Ranking had a pair of surveys looking at what declarations by men about themselves make women lose all romantic interest in them, and vice-versa.

Demographics

Over the 4th and 5th of April 2013 1,101 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 50.6% of the sample were male, 23.3% in their teens, 25.2% in their twenties, 25.5% in their thirties, and 26.1% in their forties; there was no-one older than 49 in this sample. Note that the score in the results refers to the relative number of votes for each option, not a percentage of the total sample.

This seems to be quite an odd list, and I don’t think I’ve ever been in a situation where someone has said something that has put me right off them! I’m also not really sure why either having bought a flat or having money in the stock market is a problem.
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I think the above is the take-away from this survey by the fast fashion retailer Uniqlo into Cool Biz and Super Cool Biz, who used this survey as an excuse to promote this year’s Super Cool Biz line of clothes.

Demographics

Between the 10th and 13th of May 2013 200 men and women in full employment living within Tokyo and aged between 20 and 59 completed an internet-based questionnaire.

I don’t really go much for Cool Biz, but I’m always relatively casual at work. I have heard other people say that wearing a vest or T-shirt under a normal shirt helps no end on sweaty Japanese summer days, so perhaps I’ll pick up a couple of Uniqlo T-shirts and give them a go.
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Research Panel recently did a Day Research quick survey on piercings; 147,357 people responded to the question.

14.7% said they had one (there was no investigation into what part of the body, but the answer includes conventional ear lobe piercing), 9.7% used to have one, 8.9% didn’t have one but were interested in getting one, and 66.7% had no interest at all.

By way of comparison, according to this data, 14% of Americans and 10% of British people have piercing in places other than their earlobes, but their figures on 83% of Americans having piercings and 72% of them being women would mean that at least 60% of Americans are female, which obviously indicates an error somewhere!

A recent survey from goo Research, reported on by japan.internet.com, into text-based communication revealed carrier email ruled for mobile users, but SMS was also unexpectedly popular.

Demographics

Between the 7th and 10th of May 2013 1,073 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a mobile phone (including smartphone) based survey. 54.1% of the sample were female, 2.1% in their teens, 18.6% in their twenties, 38.3% in their thirties, 27.8% in their forties, and 13.1% aged fifty or older.

Quite frankly, I find the mobile carrier SMS figure very difficult to believe, especially as there is no such thing as free texts plans, and they cost 3.5 yen each on docomo at least, and all phones come with carrier email that is usually free and supports much longer messages than SMS. Perhaps many people think that sending an email to another mobile user is SMS? However, talking to a friend, he suggested that emoji on the iPhone are much easier to use in SMS than in email, and also LINE (pictured above) encourages people to use phone numbers, not email addresses.

I use pretty much everything listed here, except for SMS and SNS. I use Google Hangouts for social chat, which I suppose counts as a voice call service, especially now it has become a standalone app rather than the old Messenger that was grafted on to Google Plus.
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That’s the question posed by Research Panel’s Day Research, where 149,374 people of both sexes were asked if they liked stuff like this pictured below on women:

The score for both sexes combined were 35.7% liked it, 60.7% didn’t like it, and 3.6% just didn’t know what nail art was! However, when the sexes were split, just 24.9% of guys liked it versus 70.0% who didn’t, while for the women 47.8% liked it while 50.2% didn’t. One suggestion why was offered by a matchmaker, who said that it was a huge turn-off for guys as it gave the impression of someone who wasn’t interested in doing housework.

japan.internet.com recently reported on a survey by goo Research into eating and drinking establishment usage, with this article focusing on web sites used for getting such information.

Demographics

Between the 19th and 23rd of April 2013 1,098 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 53.6% of the sample were male, 13.4% in their teens, 15.1% in their twenties, 21.3% in their thirties, 17.6% in their forties, 15.2% in their fifties, and 17.4% aged sixty or older.

I don’t really use these web sites much, as I tend to just visit a few regular places, and these places don’t have coupons that I can use. However, for work events our usual organiser uses mostly Gurunavi, and occasionally Tabelog.

As you can see if you follow the links, Gurunavi is the only place with English, although much of it is machine-translated and -transliterated, so the restaurant names come out rather wonky. Picking one from their selection for the day, it is listed as YAKINIKUDEN YUNIBAHSARUSHITEIWOHKUOOSAKANAITEN, but writing that as “Yakiniku Den Universal City Walk Osaka Naiten” would surely be more understandable!
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The cosmetics seller and make-up training school, naturaglacè, catchphrase “Dolce make-up by nature’s way”, recently conducted its own survey into one’s own make-up.

Demographics

Between the 26th of February and the 4th of March 2013 1,505 women completed a web-based questionnaire. Details on how the sample was gathered, or more detailed demographics was not presented.

Not being in the habit of wearing make-up, I cannot really comment too much on this poll, although I will note that from the women in Q5A, Haruka Ayase, Koyuki and Kaori Momoi have appeared together in an advert for SK-II skin care cosmetics.
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