世論 What Japan Thinks

infoPLANT recently published the results of an opinion poll they conducted into watching movies. Over a week at the start of September they published an open survey through the DoCoMo iMode menu system, where they gathered the views of 5,963 self-selected people, 65.5% female.

I manage to get to the cinema about once a month on average, although I’ve got about four or five coming up this month that wifey is dragging me to I’m all too happy to attend with wifey. Yesterday I went to see Lady in the Water, which would have been a good Twilight Zone episode, but as a movie…

In Japan, the average ticket price outside the rare multiplexes is ¥1,800 (cheaper for the last show), but at least popcorn and drinks are reasonably priced. However, if you go, always try to buy the advance tickets, usually ¥1,300, and they often come with a free present, which I must try to flog off on e-Bay one day. Anyone want to make me an offer for five World Trade Center candles complete with brass-effect plastic stand?

Since I’m mentioning cinema prices, the other two main ways to save money are to go on the first of the month when prices are just ¥1,000, but of course everything sells out quickly, or if you’re of the female persuasion, most cities have a ¥1,000 Ladies’ Day once a week. Movix Rokko tries to balance things out with a Men’s Day at the same price.
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At the start of last month, MyVoice asked its monitor panel whether they read their mobile phone’s manual. They got 12,967 valid replies to their private internet-based opinion poll; 54% of the respondents were female, 3% in their teens, 21% in their twenties, 38% in their thirties, 25% in their forties, and 13% aged fifty or older.

Most telephones come with a telephone directory thickness manual, although usually in A5 size, plus perhaps two other subsiduary manuals. Actually, English speakers have it best, as there is usually a 10 or 20 page appendix with a potted guide to the phone that summarises all the key features in English.

Oh, and RTFM is, for those who might not know, an abbreviation for Read The Friendly (or substituting other F-words as necessary) Manual.
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japan.internet.com recently published the results of a survey by goo Research’s mobile group on what sort of mobile phone people had. This mobile survey is slightly different from the usual style – this is sent directly to the mobile phones of members of their monitor group, and is called a “real time” survey. This was their sixteenth mobile users’ survey (but the first I’ve translated, I think), and this time they received 1,086 successfully completed questionnaires. 56.5% of the respondents were female, 3.8% in their teens, 30.8% in their twenties, 41.0% in their thirties, 20.6% in their forties, and 3.8% aged fifty or older.

This survey is quite an incomplete one, so apologies in advance for the lack of full information for some of the questions. I should register with them so I can get the full data, although I do worry about infringing copyright if I republish data obtained via a semi-private site, even if it is free to access.
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japan.internet.com recently published the results of a survey by JR Tokai Express Research into spyware counter-measures. They interviewed 330 people employed in public or private enterprises (why they limited it like that, I don’t know!), with 81.8% of the sample male, 12.7% in their twenties, 40.9% in their thirties, 31.8% in their forties, 13.3% in their fifties, and 1.2% in their sixties.

One thing that isn’t clear is whether or not the anti-spyware tools are part of an anti-virus package, a firewall, or a specialised checking tool. Personally, I use, and strongly recommend, Spybot – Search & Destroy, and to some extent suggest AdAware as a secondary tool. I also recommend that Windows users ditch Explorer and try Opera instead.
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Thanks to Peter at Friendly Noises for providing me with the text of the rest of the article regarding American attitudes towards Japan during and in the aftermath of World War Two.

This is a continuation from a previous post.

I think this summary of wartime and post-war surveys are interesting even today when we compare them with public opinion regarding Iraq and Afghanistan. Some unpopular choices were carried out, such as only 4% backing keeping Hirohito as the Emperor, but they seem to have worked out rather well in the end.

In December 1944, 88% percent of Americans were in favour of punishing the Japanese military leaders after the war. The article says “some suggested punishments went into hair-raising details”, but fortunately we are spared these details.

In June 1945, only (only?) 54% of the American people could correctly name Hirohito as the Emperor, but regardless of what he was called, a third were in favour of the death penalty for him, 11% wanted life imprisonment, 9% exile, 17% wanted the courts to decide, and 4% wanted nothing done to him – “He’s only a figurehead for the warlord” was a typical reason. 23% gave various other suggestions or had no opinion, and 3% suggested keeping him as a puppet to run Japan for the United States.

When getting onto the topic of prisoner of war treatment, in mid-1945 (post war or not is not noted, but I think this was during the war) public sentiment held the Japanese people guilty by association of breaching the Geneva Convention; when asked “To what extent do you think the Japanese people approve of the killing and starving of prisoners; entierly, partly, or not at all?”, 63% chose “entirely, 25% “partly”, and just 4% “not at all”. When asked the same question about the Germans, just 31% judged them “entirely” approving of mistreatment, 51% “partly”, and 4% “not at all”. In addition, 8% thought the German people were not aware of what was going on, and 6% had no opinion. Figures for these last two opinions in relation to the Japanese is not noted.

In August 1945, before Japan’s surrended, 53% of Americans were in favour of Japanese war crime trials, 14% wanted to hang them high with no due process or other similar summary dispatching of the bad guys, and a third advocated reeducation and democratisation. This last figure is in contrast with just 8% holding similar views in the 1944 survey published above.

In September 1945, the early days of the American occupation of Japan, 61% the American people felt they were not being tough enough on the Japanese. about a third thought it was about right, and just 1% felt they were too tough. 6% had no opinion. When viewed by education levels, the more educated people were more likely to think the treatment was about right. Older people also tended to find the treatment about right.

As a comparison, in October 1945 a similar poll was taken regarding attitudes to the German occupation, although since the occupation had started earlier, a direct comparison is difficult to make. Around half the sample thought they were not tough enough, 37% thought it was just right, and 2% that it was too tough, with 11% undecided.

Another poll in October 1945 illustrated that people thought the occupation of Japan would be a long-term affair; the median figure was 10 years, with college graduates reckoning on 15 years.

Towards the end of 1949, this question was asked: “General Douglas MacArthur says the Japanese have met the terms of surrender and are now entitled to a peace treaty. Do you think the United States should or should not take our troops out of Japan and let her govern herself?” 64% thought they should stay, 26% backed General MacArthur, and 10% didn’t know. However, the question did not say under what terms people wanted the troops to stay in Japan.

In 1946, when asked how the occupations of Japan and Germany were doing, in response to the question “Do you think we have done a good job or a poor job in handling our occupation of Japan (Germany?)”, 60% thought the USA was doing a good job in Japan versus 31% in Germany; 15% versus 24% thought it was fair, and and just 4% and 2% thought the troops were doing a poor job. The main reason given for Japan getting a good rating was the excellent leadership of General MacArthur, others included the lack of trouble in Japan, successful efforts for re-introducing democracy (eg, votes for women), and the fact that Japan had a unified command structure rather than Germany being split into four parts. By 1949, 81% approved of General MacArthur, and only 5% disapproved.

In the first half of this article, we saw the extreme hostility towards Japan in the war years. However, by 1949 attitudes had softened considerably; 34% felt friendly towards the Japanese people, 30% neutral, and 29% unfriendly. College-educated people were distictly more favourable, with half of them feeling friendly. Somewhat surprising, perhaps, was that war veterans had very similar positive attitudes to the Japanese.

In addition, when the same sample was asked “Do you think the United States should or should not do more to help Japan get back on her feet?”, 31% favoured more help, 57% opposed more, and 12% had no opinion. For those who expressed friendliness towards the Japanese people in the previous question, 49% supported more help whilst 80% of those unfriendly opposed further aid. College-level respondents voted 43% in favour and 48% opposed to more aid whilst those who only finished grammar school were at 25% and 62% respectively.

Finally, when asked what they liked most and least about the Japanese, the popular virtues identified included “industrious”, hardworking”, “cooperating with the authorities”, “great manufacturing skill”, “clever” and “smart. The key vices were “sneaky”, “treacherous”, “cruel”, “barbaric”, and “cannot understand or appreciate democracy because they are too deeply imbued with Emperor-worship”.

Searching through Google for nothing in particular, I came across this page from Public Opinion Polls on Japan by Arthur N. Feraru, Far Eastern Survey, Vol. 19, No. 10 (May 17, 1950), pp. 101-103. This is part of a summary of surveys into views of Americans regarding Japanese and their internment during World War Two.

UPDATE: Thanks to Peter at Friendly Noises for providing me with the text of the rest of the article regarding American attitudes towards Japan during and in the aftermath of World War Two. The story continues in my next post.

In December 1942, according to a poll by Gallop, 97% of those from California, Nevada, Oregon, Washington and Arizona approved of the relocation of them to camps, 2% opposed, and 1% were undecided. Only 29% approved of their free return to the West Coast after the war, 24% would allow US citizens only to return, 31% would allow none, and 16% were undecided. In addition, 69% would be unwilling to hire Japanese servants after the war, and 58% would boycott Japanese stores.

On a nationwide basis, 35% approved of their free return to the West Coast after the war, 26% would allow US citizens only to return, 17% would allow none, and 22% were undecided.

In another survey conducted in December 1944, when asked what they thought should be done about Japan after the war, 13% favoured killing everyone, 33% favoured the breaking up or dissolution of Japan as a political entity, 28% supported supervision and control, and only 8% favoured re-education and rehabilitation.

Talking of history, it seems there is also a book What Japan Thinks from way back in 1921, which might be interesting to try to get my hands on.

As part of DIMSDRIVE Research’s 92nd Ranking Survey, towards the end of August they asked members of their internet monitor group which habits they want to break, but just can’t manage to. They got 5,595 responses, with 2,874, or 51.4% of the sample male.

This is a slightly higher male to female ratio than usual for DIMSDRIVE, so perhaps that suggests men have more bad habits?

I’d love to see a survey on what habits foreigners wish Japanese would quit! I’d put slurping noodles and sniffing rather than blowing one’s nose at the top of the list.
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japan.internet.com published the results of a survey carried out in the middle of September by JR Tokai Express Research into how people back up data at home. They interviewed 330 people employed in private or public enterprises; 82.4% were male, 13.0% in their twenties, 43.0% in their thirties, 27.0% in their forties, 14.5% in their fifties, and 2.4% in their sixties.

I, like almost half in this survey, back up my important stuff (mostly photos) to CD-R on a semi-regular basis. Actually, last month I almost had a back up muck-up when wifey’s install of Outlook Express suddenly lost all its address book after she tried to add a new address and I had been rather remiss about backing it up recently. It turned out, however, to be a bug in a recent Microsoft security update, which fortunately is easily resolved by following the procedure described in the linked Knowledge Base article.
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japan.internet.com recently published the results of a survey by JR Tokai Express Research into how people exchange mobile phone numbers and email addresses. 330 people from their monitor group successfully completed a private online survey; 62.7% of the group was male, 15.5% in their twenties, 37.0% in their thirties, 26.1% in their forties, 14.8% in their fifties, and 6.7% in their sixties.

Although the infra-red connection is probably the surest way to exchange data, one problem is, if my experiences are anything to go by, people forget how to use the feature! There is one general “Receive infrared” menu option, but everyone seems to forget where it is; it would make more sense when you select the “Add new contact” option to have a sub-menu saying “Receive data from infra-red”. Coupled with that, there should be a semi-automated exchange. Actually, it might be better to add to the “Display own number” screen an “Exchange via infra-red”, so if both parties select that screen, the send and receive can occur at the same time.

I’ve probably now given away a patentable idea that my employers could have used!
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Last month goo Ranking published three surveys regarding digital cameras; what would you first shoot with a new digital camera, what is the most important point when selecting a digital camera, and finally what colour would you want the digital camera body to be.

As always, these rankings should be taken with a pinch of salt due to the lack of demographics and the open nature of the poll. Remember that the score listed is the percentage of votes for each choice relative to the top choice.
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