世論 What Japan Thinks

japan.internet.com recently reported on a survey by goo Research into electronic cash, and found that the most common usage was where being quick was important, such as at train stations, convenience stores, and small transactions to avoid fighting with change.

Demographics

Between the 17th and 19th of April 2013 1,068 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.4% of the sample were male, 16.3% in their teens, 18.3% in their twenties, 21.9% in their thirties, 16.2% in their forties, 15.6% in their fifties, and 11.7% aged sixty or older.

The numbers do suggest that electronic money is well-established here in Japan. I use one card, only, Hankyu Stacia, from a local railway, department store, shopping centre, baseball team, hotel etc operator, mostly for saving me fiddling about at ticket machines, but also occasionally at convenience stores and rarely at vending machines. It also has the benefit (from my point of view, at least) of being a post-pay system – there is no stored money; they are closer to credit card transactions. Mind you, given that most if not all electronic cash cards tied to credit cards have auto-charging features (that is, when your stored balance gets below a certain point when you pay for something, a debit from your credit card account is automatically added to your stored balance) the benefits of post-pay are I suppose minimal!
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I’m sure there must be someone out there interested in this ranking survey from Anicom, a major pet insurance company, into the most popular names for birds, rabbits and ferrets. This survey was conducted on the 31st of March last year (2012) by looking at the pet names registered on pet insurance contracts. The names of 480 birds, 2,573 rabbits, and 1,900 ferrets were collected. If there is an appropriate English meaning for the names, I will put it in brackets after the Japanese pet name

By the way, I searched Flickr for Creative Common-licenced “rabbit injury” photos, and you can see what came up!

Popular Japanese bird names

First equal, with 2.5% of the vote, were Sora (sky) and Pii. Third was Hana (flower) at 2.1%, fourth equal were Sakura (cherry blossom), Piiko, Pippi, Momo (peach, or if it were a chicken, perhaps thigh…) and Lemon on 1.3%, and ninth equal were Koko, Nana and Hina (chick), at 1.0%. Note that Pii and its variants are Japanese onomatopoeic bird calls.

For boy birds, Sora was top at 2.7%, then Popo second at 2.2%, and third equal at 1.6% were Hana, Pippi, Pipi and Maro.

For girl birds, Hana and Pii were top equal with 3.2%, Lemon second with 2.6%, and third equal were Koko, Sora and Nana.

Popular Japanese rabbit names

First was Maron (chestnut) with 1.5%, second Momo (peach) with 1.2%, third Moko with 1.1%, fourth equal Choko (chocolate) and Mimi (ear) at 1.0%, sixth equal were Uu, Hana (flower), Moka (mocha perhaps), and Sora (sky) at 0.9%, and tenth was Koko at 0.8%. For rabbits, brown-related names seem quite popular.

For boy rabbits, Maron was top with 1.2%, Moka second with 1.0%, Sora third at 0.9%, Kotaro fourth at 08%, and Rabi fifth at 0.7%.

For girl rabbits, Momo was top with 1.7%, second equal were Hana and Mimi at 1.4%, and fourth equal Hime (princess) and Maron at 1.2%.

Popular Japanese ferret names

The top ferret name was Momo (peach) at 1.3%, second was Choko at 1.1%, Kuu third at 1.0%, Ten fourth at 0.9%, fifth equal were Moka (mocha), Kotaro and Sakura (cherry blossom) at 0.8% and eighth equal were Kokoa (cocoa), Sora (sky) and Hime (princess) at 0.7%

For boy ferrets, first was Kotaro at 1.3%, second Ten at 1.1%, third Kuu at 1.0% and fourth equal Kai, Sora and Ponta at 0.9%

For girl ferrets, Momo was first with 1.8%, second was Hime at 1.4%, third equal were Choko (chocolate) and Rin at 1.3% and fifth equal were Sakura and Hana (flower) at 1.2%.

I hope you all feel suitably enlightened now!

The site t-news Web, a site for university students that claims to have over 30,000 subscribers from the Tokyo area, with a high percentage of them being medical students from Tokyo and Waseda Universities, took a look at underage drinking by university students.

Demographics

Over the 20th and 21th of April 2013 323 undergraduate and postgraduate students completed an internet-based questionnaire. 51% of the sample were male, and 25% were from Tokyo University, 16% from Waseda University, 14% from Keio University, 3% from Hitotsubashi University, and 42% from other.

Judging by other forums, asking about the drinking age and carding is a common question for people planning to come to Japan, so as far as I am aware from other people’s input, there is very little if any checking of credentials except perhaps at night clubs. Most convenience stores and supermarkets, however, when you buy booze the till pops up a message on a screen asking you to confirm if you are 20 years old, usually both in English and Japanese. I’ve not actually bought any booze outside a pub for years, but it appears that there is no “NO” button on the till, so unless you shop in a school uniform no-one quite frankly bothers.
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Pet and Family, an insurance company who bill themselves as being “low cost and short term”, took a look at pet owners’ plans for Golden Week. Golden Week is just ending as I type this; the 29th of April and the 3rd, 4th and 5th are public holidays in Japan, and many employers (including mine) make the intervening days holidays too, and this week-long holiday period is known as Golden Week.

Demographics

Between the 12th and 14th of April 2013 1,667 pet (presumably cat and dog only) owners from all over the country aged between 20 and 79 completed “internet research”. The means by which the sample were chosen, etc, is not disclosed. 68.0% of the sample were male, but no further demographic information was given.

Note further that it does not say if any people had both cats and dogs. or two sizes of dogs, etc, or if they had, how they should answer Q1 and others.

I’d like to see more detailed breakdown of the figures; how many people who went on overnight trips left their pets (specifically cats) home alone? When I was single, I left my cat at home for a maximum of three nights, although that was the exception rather than the rule, as I usually took him to a cattery. However, in Japan there are few catteries, so if we go away we have to put our cats in with the vets, and they just have a large-sized box to stay in.

I didn’t do anything this Golden Week bar one trip to the theatre (I slept through much of the first act!) and one trip to see the in-laws.
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goo Ranking recently published the results of what painful fashion failures people trying too hard to dress young make.

Demographics

Over the 6th and 7th of March 2013 1,083 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 56.7% of the sample were female, 11.6% in their teens, 15.0% in their twenties, 24.9% in their thirties, 24.7% in their forties, 12.7% in their fifties, and 11.1% aged sixty or older. Note that the score in the results refers to the relative number of votes for each option, not a percentage of the total sample.

Wifey occasionally strays into number 2 territory, and of course what Japanese woman doesn’t do 20?

Pictured here is Saki chan and Sayuri; Saki chan often falls into a number of the traps when she does her Evangelion cos-play as here despite being just 29 years old, but Sayuri regularly does just about everything below, but I think she manages to avoid looking too muttonesque… However, her husband has an ill-suited number 17 haircut.
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Today’s quickie is from Research Panel’s Day Research, looking at going to the book store or convenience store and reading books on display, called 立ち読み, tachiyomi, literally “reading standing up”, as the photo below illustrates.

137,793 of the Research Panel monitors answered the question “Have you ever gone to a book store, convenience store, etc, read books standing up, then left without buying anything?” on the 2nd and 3rd of May 2013. 29.5% admitted to often leaving without buying, 41.8% to sometimes leaving without buying, 12.1% had never left without buying, 14.8% had never done reading standing up with or without buying, and finally 1.9% didn’t go to book stores or convenience stores.

NHK, Japan’s public broadcaster, today, the 2nd of May 2013, published the results of survey on changing the Japanese constitution. For reference, here is the current constitution.

If you read the foreign press on the amendment plans, I would forgive you for thinking the new draft constitution is:

1. Nuke China and North Korea
2. Err
3. That’s it

However, the reality is of course quite different, and the will of the people quite different from the will of the politicians, as this survey demonstrates.

Demographics

Between the 19th and 21st of April 2013 2,685 people were called by computer-selected random digit dialling (RDD); from that 1,615 people (60%) aged 18 or older from all over the country replied to the survey. No further demographic breakdown was given. Note that this RDD methodology calls mainly fixed-line phones during weekdays, so there is going to be a bias in the sample. Also note that “No answer” was an acceptable reply to some questions, so the percentages below sometimes don’t add up to 100% as the “No answer” figure is not noted.

The need for constitutional amendment

The first question was about the need for constitutional amendments. 42% thought it was necessary to do so, 16% that it was unnecessary, and 39% couldn’t say one way or the other. However, when NHK previously asked the question six years ago, the numbers were 41%, 24% and 30%, so it would appear that all the recent talk about external threats like China in the Senkaku islands and North Korea have not convinced a significant number of people of the necessity of change.

When asked why they thought the change was necessary, 75% said that times have changed and problems that cannot be dealt with have occured, up just two percentage points in six years. Next, 15% said that changes are needed so that Japan can play its role in international society, down from 18% six years ago. For those who thought the changes were unnecessary, the top reason given by 53% was that they want to protect Article Nine, the Renunciation of War Article, down nine percentage points, then 36% saying that there are some problems with the current constitution, but not enough to merit amending it, up ten percentage points.

Article Nine, the Renunciation of War Article

Looking specifically at Article Nine, just 33% thought it was necessary to amend it, 30% thought it was unnecessary, and 32% couldn’t say either way. Six years ago, the numbers for and against were 28% and 41% respectively.

When asked why they were in favour of amending it, 47% said that it should be clearly written in the constitution that Japan can have a defence force, and 32% that Japan should be able to participate in military operations of the United Nations and others. 66% of those against amending said that in the Peace Constitution, Article 9 is the most important article, and 16% said that even without amendment, we can change how the Article is interpreted.

Article 96, the Amendment Article

This article spells out how the constitution may be amended, namely that a two-thirds majority of all members (not just those present for the vote) of both Houses, and then a national referendum where a simple majority of the votes cast will be sufficient to ratify the amendment. The proposed amendment to the Amendment Article is that both houses need just a simple majority of all members of each House.

First of all, people were asked if they knew about the proposed amendment to Article 96; 17% said they knew it well, 36% knew something about it, 30% didn’t really know much, and 15% knew nothing at all. Regarding the specific amendment, reducing from a two-thirds to a simple majority, 26% said they agreed, 24% disagreed, and 47% couldn’t say.

Finally, there are a number of new rights, etc that it is being argued may require either new articles or amendments to existing ones. People were asked for their opinion on the following:

The season for visiting the beach and searching in the sand at low tide is upon us, so Research Panel’s Day Research asked if people had ever done so, with 137,387 people from their panel answering the question. 70.3% had done so, 28.8% had not, and 0.9% didn’t know what it was. Note that the literal Japanese phrase is “gathering at low tide”, with the shellfish implied, which might suggest why some people were unaware of the term. Furthermore, 4.1% of the teens who answered the question didn’t know what it was, and a higher percentage of the younger age groups had never done so; specifically almost a half of those in their twenties and thirties.

This is probably not too surprising a result, and furthermore on the television news at the weekend I watched a short item on people gathering them from Osaka bay, but the voice-over pointed out that the shellfish were over the safe limit for some shellfish toxin, so people could swap their haul for edible shells at a stand on the beach!

japan.internet.com reported on a survey by goo Research into electronic book purchasing sites, although the column chose to highlight free e-book sites.

Demographics

Between the 5th and 10th of April 2013 1,076 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionniare. 53.2% of the sample were male, 16.5% in their teens, 18.2% in their twenties, 21.7% in their thirties, 16.1% in their forties, 15.7% in their fifties, and 11.8% aged sixty or older.

A long time ago I downloaded and read two books from Aozora, and I’ve also recently downloaded a couple from Google Books, but I am yet to read them.
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Research Panel conducted a Day Research survey into which of the following “nama” do people like. The kanji character 生 may be read as nama, in which case it means live, fresh, etc. Over the 28th and 29th of April 2013 130,597 members of the Research Panel monitor group made their multiple selection.

Most popular was 生ビール, nama bi-ru, draft beer, with 48.5%. 生演奏, nama ensou, live performance had 34.9%, 生魚, nama sakana, raw fish was at 28.6%, 生野菜, nama yasai, raw vegetables at 26.4%, 生スポーツ中継, nama supo-tsu chuukei, live sports broadcast at 26.3%, 生カキ, nama kaki, raw oysters at 25.2%, 生チョコ, nama choco, fresh cream chocolate or ganache, the soft chocolate usually found in truffles, was at 24.9%, 生卵, nama tamago, raw eggs at 11.2%, 生肉, nama niku, and raw meat at 5.4%. Furthermore, 8.2% said they didn’t like any of the above nama. I’d personally choose draft beer, raw veggies, and chocolates, but here is a picture of someone who would appear to be in the 8.2%: