世論 What Japan Thinks

Not having learnt their lesson from the recent natto scandal, another television station broadcast information about the newest wonder food tonight, with even my wife, who has had her confidence greatly shaken by the Aruaru Daijiten fiasco, immediately reached for her mobile phone to add it to our shopping list for tomorrow.

This miracle food is the humble enoki mushroom (can’t stand them myself, though!), and to enjoy the full benefits of its astonishing power, take one plastic pack of said fungus, rip it open, stick your nose in and inhale deeply, and in an instant you will be overwhelmed by…

…the smell of strawberries. Yes, Trivia no Izumi’s back, with other stunning revelations such as a top-class Yabusama – horseback archer – found a Kyotei speedboat the most pleasing modern ride to shoot arrows from, beating off competition from other modes of transport such as a roller coaster and an escalator.

goo Rankings published another one of their silly yet slightly unsettling polls recently, when they looked at what things are impossible to do now that they are an adult. The original Japanese version is phrased to have a suggestion of regret, I feel. The survey was conducted between the 18th and 20th of December last year.

I can’t really imagine the thought processes that are required to make hopping in the bath with their parents the second most notable thing that adults cannot do.
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japan.internet.com recently reported on the results of a survey conducted by JR Tokai Express Research into what bosses thought about their subordinates blogging (and other unreported topics related to business blogs). They interviewed 330 people managers in public and private companies; a mere 5.2% were female (see other surveys on this subject), 0.9% in their twenties, 20.0% in their thirties, 53.9% in their forties, 21.2% in their fifties, and 3.3% in their sixties. Just these demographics alone are fascinating!

My direct boss has read this blog on occassion, but I always have the concern that perhaps someone in the personel department may be monitoring it for any statement that I may make which are against some company policy or other. Therefore I try to avoid telling about how really horrid wonderful my job is. Here’s one bit of hopefully non-confidential information: I am from 5pm today the longest-serving foreigner in our division, as the guy ahead of me just quit. I don’t know whether to to be proud or depressed.

Have any of my readers in Japan got into trouble for blogging? Hopefully nothing as serious as an American resident in Korea who got sacked for blogging about how Korea’s view on one aspect of history may not be correct.
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Over the first five days of 2007, MyVoice conducted a survey within their internet monitor group into the matter of mineral water. This is the third time they have conducted this survey, but the first time I have translated it! 10,732 people successfully completed the private online questionnaire. 54% were female, 2% in their teens, 19% in their twenties, 39% in their thirties, 27% in their forties, and 13% in their fifties.

My almost every day mineral water is the below mentioned Crystal geyser sparkling lemon (or sometimes lime), although Suntory’s Tennensui is also rather nice. However, all this talking about mineral water reminds me of a Penn and Teller show on the subject, which also reminds me that I am glad indeed that Penta Water does not feature on the list.
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With the recent kerfuffle in the news about the impending closure of 2 channel, or at least the threat of a forced seizure of the domain name, or perhaps just business as usual, japan.internet.com reported on goo Research’s survey into what people thought about the rumoured closing down. Between the 19th and 21st of January they interviewed 1,059 people from their monitor group. 51.9% were male, 26.9% in their twenties, 25.1% in their thirties, 24.6% in their forties, and 23.4% in their fifties.

Note that a previous survey showed that 56% of a sample of mainly business professionals have visited there, so I would have through that there might have been a stronger showing of people with definite opinions about the news, especially considering that over three quarters of the total population have visited the site, and just 4% have not heard anything about it. Also note that as far as I can see, neither my blog nor my name appears on that site, but I’m not sure if that’s a good or a bad sign!
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[part 1] [part 2]

Last weekend goo Research, in conjunction with Yomiuri Weekly, released the results of a survey into what people thought the coming year may bring. For a week spanning the end of November and the start of December 11,648 members of goo’s online monitor group successfully completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 53.2% of the respondents were male, 5.9% in their teens, 18.9% in their twenties, 29.9% in their thirties, 21.5% in their forties, 11.9% in their fifties and 11.8% aged sixty or older.

Q7 is interesting in that the more negative effects of the flood of retiring baby boomers seem to be more in people’s mind than the positive benefits.

Note that there was an extra question in the survey regarding people’s favourite female “announcers” (Japanese uses that English word, but their role is more like an MC or an MC’s assistant, or even just a TV personality), but I find the obsession slightly – I can’t really think of a suitable word, but their role seems to be to smile prettily, be demure, then get married off to a sports personality once they approach their television sell-by date. Therefore, I’ll skip that question.
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[part 1] [part 2]

Last weekend goo Research, in conjunction with Yomiuri Weekly, released the results of a survey into what people thought the coming year may bring. For a week spanning the end of November and the start of December 11,648 members of goo’s online monitor group successfully completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 53.2% of the respondents were male, 5.9% in their teens, 18.9% in their twenties, 29.9% in their thirties, 21.5% in their forties, 11.9% in their fifties and 11.8% aged sixty or older.

The economic outlook in Q4 seem very bleak, but remember this is the viewpoint of the average person in the street, not the pronoucements of politicians, as there seems to be a lot of pundits suggesting that the recent economic growth in Japan has not trickled down to the workers, but instead has been used for investment or passing on to shareholders.
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Over one week in the middle of December infoPLANT gathered responses to a survey on baseball. 5,272 people, 57.4% female, successfully completed a self-selecting survey through DoCoMo’s mobile phone iMode menuing system.

In Q2, almost a quarter of all men and a sixth of all women questioned said they attended a professional baseball match at a stadium last year, a figure I find a little hard to believe, quite frankly, making me suspect there might have been a lot of self-selecting bias going on. I shall have to investigate other surveys to see how the numbers compare.

In Q3, not surprisingly the team most people saw was the season’s champions, Nippon Ham Fighters, but perhaps surprisingly they were the only team with more female than male viewers, no doubt helped in part by the biggest Ham of them all.
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japan.internet.com reported on a survey conducted by JR Tokai Express Research into the use of public wireless LAN connections. On the 7th of January they interviewed 330 people employed in public or private enterprise. 80.3% of the sample was male, 15.8% in their twenties, 41.5% in their thirties, 30.3% in their forties, 10.0% in their fifties, and 2.4% in their sixties.

Note that in another survey last year, almost half of all interviewed used a wireless connection at home, so it isn’t a lack of awareness holding back people, although it could of course be a lack of portable machines, although since JR Tokai Express Research’s monitor base is heavily business-person oriented (it mainly advertises though, and awards points for discounts on, shinkansen bullet trains) one might expect there to be a high percentage of people with portable devices capable of accessing WiFi access points. Perhaps the full survey results analyse this aspect, and why almost three in five want to use public WiFi but haven’t yet.

I’m writing this whilst sitting in the biggest Freds Cafe (lovely bread, well worth a visit!) in Hankyuu Umeda station in Osaka, but there is absolutely no WiFi signal present according to NetStumbler. Anyone know about the availability of free (and legal!) WiFi in central Osaka? Apart from Starbucks, who I refuse to patronise, where else is there?
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UPDATE: This diet does not work!

I’m sadly unable to find any surveys related to the biggest buzz on the English-language internet last week, the release of Apple’s iPhone, so instead I’ll report on goo Ranking’s look at the biggest buzz on Japanese web sites, namely what keywords people are using in goo’s search engine to look for natto. The data was collected between the 7th and 16th of January 2007, or Heisei 19 in the Japanese calendar, thus the title.

Natto is fermented soya beans, and if you search YouTube for natto you can see rather a lot of foreigners (and one cat) trying to eat it. (link flood coming up!) The shortage of natto has been widely blogged about, and was sparked by Aruaru Daijiten, a popular health (and quackery) show, who in their first show of the New Year introduced the natto diet, which is basically one pack of natto before breakfast and evening meals, then eat just as much as you normally do, assuming the natto hasn’t put you off your food altogether! The most beneficial way to eat natto is to stir it at least 50 times then leave it to stand at room temperature for 15 minutes. It’s something to do with assisting the production of DHEA to increase your metabolic rate, apparently.

In other related news, World Net Daily (I can’t believe I’m linking to that rag!) reported how soy beans turn you gay; natto may be one of the most potent soy bean products, if this video is to be believed! (Note – not really recommended for viewing at work, and probably highly offensive to the typical World Net Daily reader)
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