世論 What Japan Thinks

After looking up a handy internet reference, it seems that the original Japanese version of this article misinterpreted what Engel’s Law really is, but don’t let that spoil the report from japan.internet.com on a survey conducted by JR Tokai Express Research Inc into family budgets and communication costs.

Demographics

On the 28th of July 2007 331 married women aged between 30 and 59 who were members of the JR Tokai Express Research monitor group successfully completed an online questionnaire. 59.8% of the sample were in their thirties, 28.4% in their forties, and 11.8% in their fifties.

There’s an interesting social point here that traditionally it is the woman who looks after the family budget, with the husband handing over his pay packet and getting a small sum of pocket money back to last him through the month, thus they chose married women as the best judges, presumably, of the family finances.

For me, communications comes to just under 20,000 yen, helped by having an extremely cheap fibre connection – under 3,000 yen, and a bundled phone deal with our cable company that works out rather cheap. Don’t ask me how much that is in relation to monthly outgoings, however!

Engel’s law states that the ratio of food costs to total budget tends to decrease as salary increases, but this survey does not report results from Q1SQ2 in relation to salaries, so one can conclude that either the more detailed survey results back this up, or they are, as suggested above, misusing the term.
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One way of making Japan a cheaper country to live it is to make sure you participate in as many point cards and other loyalty schemes as possible, as many shops and restaurants offer some degree of discounts (often from 3% to 10% or more) if you sign up to their schemes. Of course, one drawback is that you end up with a bulging wallet and time-consuming scrambles looking for the correct card. Recently, Macromill Inc reported on a survey they conducted on this topic, point cards.

Demographics

Over the 13th and 14th of July 2007 516 members of the Macromill Monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. The sample was split exactly 50:50 male and female in each age group, and similarly there were 25.0% in their twenties, 25.0% in their thirties, 25.0% in their forties and 25.0% in their fifties.

Note that in this survey questions Q1 and Q2, point cards include stamp cards, airline mileage cards, and other loyalty point-based systems, but exclude credit card points, which are investingated in Qs 5 to 7. However, some of the newer combined credit card and railway pass cards have schemes where you get bonus points for spending money in the railway line’s department store or other group companies, so I don’t know whether these point schemes are counted or not.

With some of the big electrical chains who have point systems offering from 10% to 20% depending on purchases, it can be definitely argued that their prices are artificially higher to fund this system, and with comparison shopping it is possible to save more money. However, in Osaka the choice for me is bascially either the huge Yodobashi Camera right beside the main station or perhaps saving 5% to 10% if I head down to Den-Den Town, taking 10 minutes in the subway then 15 minutes by foot, fighting my way through the crowds, then hoping the store still has the product in stock, takes credit cards, doesn’t have a prohibitive delivery cost, etc.
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This is probably the strangest survey I’ve translated since my one on the top folklore and superstitions. This time we look with goo Ranking at the urban legends that might just be true. As I am no expert in Japanese rumours, some of the translations may be wrong, and some of the rumours just seem rather odd, but I hope my readers can help me out. The survey was conducted between the 19th and 21st of June 2007.

I thought that fan death was interesting – this is a popular legend in Korea, but I didn’t know anyone really took it seriously in Japan. Perhaps interestingly, number 10, skin breathing, comes from the Bond film Goldfinger. Ian Fleming invented other such rumours, for example the one about Sumo wrestlers being trained to retract their testicles, and that gay people cannot whistle. Finally, I’d be shocked, quite frankly, if there wasn’t a bomb shelter underneath the Diet! Perhaps, however, the rumours go further.

Oh, and how I wish number 25 was true!
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Following up a lead I saw on a post on SEO Book, I downloaded a list of the top one million web sites by traffic. With a quick search for the key phrases “japan”, “nippon”, “nihon” and “tokyo” and a sort, I condensed the 600 or more hits down to the short list below of the top twenty most visited Japan-related domain names. Note that the vast majority of the sites were actually pr0n-related, so I deleted them (and one dodgy search engine spam site) and thus present the edited top twenty. The full data is from Quantcast. FAQs about the data, and an interesting search feature, can be found here. Oh, and I’m at position 225,812, just in case you’re wondering.

UPDATE: I just had a trackback from The Otaku, and I see that site should be in the table at position number four. If there’s anyone else I’ve missed, please give me shout!

UPDATE 2: I forgot Danny Choo too! In he goes at number 9, although quite frankly he barely passes my pr0n filter.

UPDATE 3: And 3yen and metropolis.co.jp! Sorry guys!

UPDATE 4: And JREF comes in at number 12.

UPDATE 5: Thanks to a post on Japanator, I’ve revisited the list, and found many (too many?) extra sites, all manga and anime-related.
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The delightful character pictured above represents the top behaviour (or should the be the bottom?) that Japanese find objectionable in drunks. Click on his sozzled visage, and for just 420 yen (US$3.50 or so) you too can take him, or one of his friends, home tonight! So, here we go with this pair of surveys from goo Research on what people end up doing when drunk and what behaviour in drunks other people find uncomfortable.

Demographics

Between the 19th and 21st of June 2007 an unspecified number of members of the goo Research online monitor group supplied their answers to the questions via a private internet-based questionnaire. As usual for goo Ranking, the top item gets 100 points, and the others get a score that corresponds to the percentage of votes in relation to the top voted item.

My biggest failing when drunk is I suppose talking in a loud voice, which seems to start even before I have any alcohol!

I found it interesting in Q1 that men flirt but women sexually harrass, according to the Japanese terms used to describe getting frisky after a couple of shandies.
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I once met someone who got chucked out of a department store for eating whole platefoods of the sample food, but if you play by the rules in Japanese food courts you can get to try a decent amount of free food. To see what the average Japanese person gets up to, MyVoice recently surveyed its online community to see what they thought about free samples.

Demographics

Over the first five days of July 2007 12,654 members of the MyVoice internet community completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 54% of the sample was male, 2% in their teens, 18% in their twenties, 39% in their thirties, 27% in their forties, and 14% aged fifty or older.

My favourite free sample is always food, and I find Hanshin department store in Umeda, Osaka a good place to try before I have no intention of buying. Other than that, I don’t really collect much else, although wifey saves up free cosmetic samples for use on holidays, and she quite often ends up buying the food we sample.

Note that paper tissues are exempt from this survey. Oh, and talking of free samples, all of you in Japan did try to get a free cream puff, I hope! The offer is still open, just in case you missed it the first time.
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One place where mobile phone vendors probably make a reasonable amount of profit is on accessories purchased along with a new phone, as they have the customer already opening their wallet, so pushing a couple of extra bits and bobs onto the punter is a relatively easy sale. To find out how the customer thinks, japan.internet.com recently reported on a survey conducted by goo Research into mobile phone accessories.

Demographics

Between the 27th and 30th of July 2007 1,084 members of goo Research’s online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 53.0% were male, 16.4% in their teens, 18.2% in their twenties, 21.9% in their thirties, 16.0% in their forties, 15.4% in their fifties, and 12.2% aged sixty or older.

Looking at Q2, I wonder if there is a possibility that the respondents were confused. I find it rather difficult to believe that less than one in five buy either an AC adaptor or a cradle, or conversely that almost one in five buy a second AC adaptor or cradle, so perhaps there was confusion as to whether or not to indicate that the separately paid for but usually purchased (I suspect) adaptor and cradle were actually to be counted as accessories.
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With all the survey companies keen to jump on the iPhone in Japan opinion bandwagon, here comes the latest offering from the company formally known as infoPLANT, Yahoo! Japan Value Insight with their take on Apple’s iPhone in Japan.

Demographics

Over the 25th and 26th of July 2007 400 members of Value Insight’s online monitor group were chosen to take part in a survey. They were split 50:50 male and female, and similarly the age distribution was 20.0% in each age group teens to the over fifties.

The report below is of the highlights of the survey; the full details of all 13 questions can be purchased for 50,000 yen, or 100,000 yen if you want the raw data too.

I find it interesting in Q5 that people want to spend not more than 22,655 yen, or under 200 US dollars, on the handset, well under half the price in the USA. Will we see a premium pricing plan for the iPhone in Japan?
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As I value my eardrums and my lungs, I’ve never ventured into the smoke-filled clamour of a pachinko parlour, although I did once enter a Kyotei boat racing stadium due to getting off the train to Miyajima in Hiroshima one stop early! Recently, MyVoice looked in detail at this, gambling in Japan.

Demographics

Over the first five days of July 2007 13,236 members of the MyVoice internet community completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 54% of the sample was male, 2% in their teens, 18% in their twenties, 40% in their thirties, 27% in their forties, and 13% aged fifty or older.

With everyone’s favourite politician, the governer of Tokyo, Shintaro Ishihara, talking about bringing casinos to Japan it is interesting to see in Q6 that people support this by about two to one, although half the population is still to decide. Personally, if done right I would bascially support the moves, but I fear the chances of it being anything other than a haven for dodgy Yakuza operations are rather slim.

Note that as pachinko and gambling in general seems to have a lower class image but the MyVoice community seems to have a slight bias towards the higher end of the class scale, I would suspect that the figures are if anything an underestimation. Earlier this year I reported on another survey on gambling, this time by Central Research Services.
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With the new 2007 summer mobile phone launch completed, with the main focus being on the top end high-specification models, NEPRO Japan came out with a report on a survey into cell phone upgrade needs.DemographicsBetween 10am on the 5th of July and 3am on the 6th of July 2007, NEPRO Japan made a questionnaire available through the menuing systems of the three main mobile service providers, namely NTT DoCoMo’s iMode, .

I try to restrict my new handset cost to under 10,000 yen, but then there’s always a new power adaptor, phone cradle, 2,000 yen contract renewal fee and a couple of other hidden costs that all add up.
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