世論 What Japan Thinks

Here’s a quicky on New Year resolutions, in particular on what qualifications Japanese would like to try to get in 2008. This survey was presented by goo Ranking.

Demographics

Over the 21st and 22nd of November 2007 1,101 members of the goo Research monitor panel completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 50.7% of the sample was female, 6.2% in their teens, 15.4% in their twenties, 30.2% in their thirties, 27.1% in their forties, 11.0% in their fifties, and 10.3% aged sixty or older. Note that the score reported is the relative number of votes each choice got, not the percentage of the sample that chose each option.

I too want to do the second choice, the Kanji Kentei! It’s surprisingly fun to study, and a good excuse to buy a Nintendo DS to help with your study. Sadly, none of the tests that I featured in an earlier article made the cut! Also note that the word kentei, 検定, is the Japanese for examination, but it also has implications of being an exam with various grades. Regarding getting English qualifications, Let’s Japan had an interesting article on the chain school market.
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That is commenting on blogs, of course, although the same is also true for what I think you were thinking of! This was one of the results published on japan.internet.com in a summary of a survey by Cross Marketing Inc into writing stuff on the internet.

Demographics

Over the 26th and 27th of December 2007 300 members of the Cross Marketing monitor pool successfully completed a private internet-based questionnaire. the sample was 50:50 male and female, and 20.0% in their teens, 20.0% in their twenties, 20.0% in their thirties, 20.0% in their forties, and 20.0% in their fifties.

One of my resolutions for the year is to network more, and although currently I write on bulletin boards just about every day, my rate of commenting on blogs is about once every two or three days. I suppose I should really set myself numeric targets such as 30 comments a month and keep track of how I’m doing.
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Although the 福袋, Fukubukuro – New Year Lucky Bag sale – season is almost over, surveys on this matter are still a little behind the times; such as this one reported on by japan.internet.com and conducted by goo Research into fukubukuro.

Demographics

Between the 21st and 25th of December 2007 1,186 members of goo Research’s online monitor panel successfully completed a private online questionnaire. 52.7% of the sample was male, 16.4% in their teens, 18.2% in their twenties, 21.2% in their thirties, 16.0% in their forties, 15.9% in their fifties, and 12.2% aged sixty or older.

If you want to try a Fukubukuro for yourself, there are still (I hope!) a few Hello Kitty phone strap bags left. Get them now or regret it forever.

Although I did say earlier that I planned to buy a Mister Donut Fukubukuro, the first day I wanted to buy we ended up eating in Mister Donut instead, and the second day the shop we went to had finished their sales for the year when we arrived. To top it all, my Misdo point card also expired so we missed out on a Pon De Lion cuddly toy.

Finally, Shari, I am still looking out for a survey on Fukubukuro satisfaction levels!
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I rent a car about twice or thrice a year, and did in fact win a free one day rental of a Voxy from Toyota Rent-a-Car recently, and this summer I finally applied for an ETC, Electronic Toll Collection, card that interfaces with the box in all Toyota rental cars to allow you to automatically pay the tolls. The first time we used it we got two 200 yen refunds for a 700 yen charge, which was nice. If you want to rent from Toyota (a bit expensive, but their cars are very nicely turned out and all have car navi, and the Prius especially is a really pleasant drive) I advice applying online for a Hertz #1 Card, as you’ll get a 10% discount and with three rentals in Japan a year you get upgraded to gold status (I hope!) and nice bonuses if you rent in Europe or the US. Today’s survey is from DIMSDRIVE Research and is about not car rental, but ETC.

Demographics

Between the 14th and 22nd of November 2007 7,287 members of the DIMSDRIVE Research monitor panel who had a car for private use completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 55.8% of the sample was female, 0.9% in their teens, 16.2% in their twenties, 37.1% in their thirties, 28.1% in their forties, 12.8% in their fifties, and 4.9% aged sixty or older.

Note that there are two components needed to use the ETC system; first, you need a card reader and transmitter to talk to the toll gate, then you need a special ETC card, usually tied to either your bank account or credit card account. Some credit card companies add the ETC functionality to a credit card, but others issue separate cards.

There’s one big puzzle regarding a highway near me; if you ever watch or listen to the traffic news during holiday periods there is always a report of 20 or 30 km tailbacks on the Chuugoku Highway at the Takarazuka Tunnel near Osaka. Having traversed this area, I can report that almost every time I go through that tunnel there is some sort of slowness. However, there are no turn-offs at that point and the road doesn’t narrow, dip or twist drastically, so why is that point a bottleneck? Last year I saw an in-train advertisement magazine with a teaser headline asking “Why is there always a traffic jam at the Takarazuka Tunnel?”, but I never bothered to buy a copy, so I am still scratching my head.
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Anyone who has been in Japan (or has been reading this blog) for any length of time will be aware of how often QR Codes, these square 2D bar codes, appear in magazine advertisements and promotional flyers. However, one aspect that I haven’t seen investigated up until now has been what other methods do people use to access these URLs. To rectify this, I present a translation of a report from japan.internet.com on a survey conducted by Cross Marketing Inc into mobile search.

Demographics

Over the 19th and 20th of December 2007 300 mobile phone users from the Cross Marketing monitor group completed a private online questionnaire. Exactly 50% of the sample was male, and exactly 20% were in their teens, 20% in their twenties, 20% in their thirties, 20% in their forties, and 20% in their fifties.

Note that in Q1 the number sending an empty email seems perhaps rather high. There could be two explanations for this; first, in-train advertisements do not, on the whole, feature QR codes, perhaps for reason of it being embarrassing to take a photo with the accompanying sound; second, sometimes QR codes encode an email address rather than a URL, so in these cases some of the respondents described the final action.
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From today, normal service will be resumed at 世論 What Japan Thinks after the New Year holidays. So, without further ado, let’s look at the first Silly Sunday survey of the New Year; here goo Ranking looked at break-up reasons people just couldn’t get their heads around, covering both what men hear from their girlfriends and what women heard from their boyfriends.

Demographics

Over the 21st and 22nd of November 2007 1,101 members of the goo Research monitor panel completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 50.7% of the sample was female, 6.2% in their teens, 15.4% in their twenties, 30.2% in their thirties, 27.1% in their forties, 11.0% in their fifties, and 10.3% aged sixty or older. Note that the score reported is the relative number of votes each choice got, not the percentage of the sample that chose each option.

I’ll not relate any personal stories here, but I did once fix up a mate with a friend of my wife’s (thankfully she doesn’t speak English so she won’t be reading this blog!) but he suddenly chickened out, so we had to tell her that he had been transferred, which always struck me as a hopelessly transparent excuse
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Chocolate; I couldn’t live without it. Although last year I looked at a number of chocolate-related surveys, and with Valentine’s Day coming up soon I’ll no doubt look again next month, I hope that like me, you just can’t get enough of chocolate even in survey form, as in this report from MyVoice on chocolate image.

Demographics

Over the first five days of December 2007 14,628 members of the MyVoice internet community successfully completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 54% of the sample was female, 2% in their teens, 16% in their twenties, 40% in their thirties, 27% in their forties, and 15% in their fifties.

In Q6, I’ve heard various bits of quackery associated with chocolate, but never that it protects against tooth decay or hayfever!

What’s your favourite Japanese chocolate-based snack? I’m a Pocky person, although I don’t eat it as much as I’d like.

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Although I mostly pick the silly surveys from goo Ranking, they do occasionally cover serious subjects, with this recent one on expectations for Japan in the future, specifically what people think politicians should be putting some effort into.

Demographics

Over the 21st and 22nd of November 2007 1,101 members of the goo Research monitor panel completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 50.7% of the sample was female, 6.2% in their teens, 15.4% in their twenties, 30.2% in their thirties, 27.1% in their forties, 11.0% in their fifties, and 10.3% aged sixty or older. Note that the score reported is the relative number of votes each choice got, not the percentage of the sample that chose each option.

Although the title of the survey page from goo Ranking specifically includes the word politics, number 5 is rather non-political, or if it is meant to be political, Singapore springs to mind as a country that regulates the manners of the citizens, which may not be a very good example to follow. On the other hand, a lot of existing legislation gets ignored as penalties are either minor or non-existant, so perhaps this is a call for more enforcement of smoking in non-smoking zones, switching off mobiles when required, etc?

I think that addressing issues regarding worker abuse (and self-abuse) where unpaid overtime is the norm, by giving some teeth to unions; indeed I’d like to see unions being penalised for not bothering to stand up against unpaid overtime! What would you like to see from the politicians?
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あけましておめでとうございます！ Here’s to another year of surveys from the interesting, weird, wonderful but sometimes downright boring world of Japanese surveys. Let’s kick off the New Year (I really am writintranslating this at about 1 am on New Year’s Day) with goo Rankings looking at what people didn’t quite manage to do last year but will try again to do this year.

Demographics

Over the 21st and 22nd of November 2007 1,101 members of the goo Research monitor panel completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 50.7% of the sample was female, 6.2% in their teens, 15.4% in their twenties, 30.2% in their thirties, 27.1% in their forties, 11.0% in their fifties, and 10.3% aged sixty or older.

I actually translated this survey last year too. It may be interesting to compare the quality and the fact that the top six answers are identical.
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As the year draws to a close, goo Ranking decided to look at what gives Japanese that feeling that the year is coming to an end.

Demographics

Over the 21st and 22nd of November 2007 1,101 members of the goo Research monitor panel completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 50.7% of the sample was female, 6.2% in their teens, 15.4% in their twenties, 30.2% in their thirties, 27.1% in their forties, 11.0% in their fifties, and 10.3% aged sixty or older.

For me, it has to be ordering the New Year postcards. What gives you that end of year sense?
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