世論 What Japan Thinks

A recent very detailed survey from Macromill Research Inc looked at the matter of cooking and married couples’ relationships

Demographics

Between the 2nd and 4th of April 2010 516 married female members of the Macromill monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 25.0% of the sample were in their twenties, 25.0% in their thirties, 25.0% in their forties, and 25.0% aged fifty or older.

My wife would like me to cook occasionally, perhaps once a month, but due to a combination of my only decent dish being a flan or quiche, we neve quite having the right ingredients in, and my general slow speed in the kitchen, I haven’t actually cooked for years! However, I always help in the kitchen, from making the tea to tidying up and washing the dishes.
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A recent very detailed survey from Macromill Research Inc looked at the matter of cooking and married couples’ relationships

Demographics

Between the 2nd and 4th of April 2010 516 married female members of the Macromill monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 25.0% of the sample were in their twenties, 25.0% in their thirties, 25.0% in their forties, and 25.0% aged fifty or older.

You’ll note in the above results that there isn’t a separate entry for the wife working and a househusband. Whether there were no such couples, they were filtered out, or just forgotton about, I do not know.

My wife cooks about five or six days a week – at the weekends we’ll have one evening meal out, and during the week there’s occasionally times when she goes to the cinema, etc, and we meet somewhere to eat out. At home we almost always eat together – she’ll eat before me if I’m going to be later than about 7:30, but fortunately that rarely happens.
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Thanks to events such as the demos in Iran last year, the awareness of Twitter has gone through the roof, from around 12% to 95%, according to this survey conducted by goo Research and reported on by japan.internet.com.

Demographics

Between the 22nd and 24th of April 2010 1,077 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.8% of the sample were male, 16.0% in their teens, 17.8% in their twenties, 21.4% in their thirties, 16.8% in their forties, 15.6% in their fifties, and 12.3% aged sixty or older.

I’ve used Twitter once or twice on my non-smartphone using the special Japanese iMode gateway, but due to stupidly high data costs in Japan (about 1 yen per kilobyte – yes, not megabyte) it costs me about 150 yen to just log in and view my home page!
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On the 1st of June last year the law in Japan was changed to allow certain non-prescription drugs to be sold over the internet; this recent survey from iBridge Research Plus, reported on by japan.internet.com, looked at the sale of medical products, focusing on internet purchases.

Demographics

On the 12th of April 2010 300 members of the iBridge monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.7% of the sample were male, 13.7% in their twenties, 31.3% in their thirties, 32.0% in their forties, 16.0% in their fifties, and 7.0% in their sixties.

Looking at Q1, the law change liberalised some sales, but also reigned in others, which was what was being asked – Japan Economy News describes the situation in detail.
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A recent survey from iShare into cellphone straps, focusing in particular on disposal, revealed many interesting habits regarding Japanese people’s phone decorations.

Demographics

Between the 24th and 29th of March 2010 507 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 55.6% of the sample were male, 31.8% in their twenties, 32.9% in their thirties, and 35.3% in their forties.

A cellphone strap survey always gives me a chance to try to sell you cute cellphone straps! The pie chart above looks at function versus design – here’s a acupressure massage function and here’s the cute Mameshiba design for instance. Q1SQ4 indicates no-one’s interested on jumping in early onto the latest bandwagon, but just in case you are, can I recommend solar-powered Game and Watch keychain?

I usually change my strap when I find a new design, but I’ve not really been in the searching mood much, so I’ve got mostly rather tatty two-year-old straps right now.
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A recent survey from iBridge Research Plus, reported on by japan.internet.com, into the computer recycling law found a significant percentage unaware of the details, a category I fall into too, I suppose.

Demographics

On the 19th of April 2010 300 members of the iBridge monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 59.3% of the sample were male, 12.7% in their twenties, 30.7% in their thirties, 34.3% in their forties, 15.3% in their fifties, and 7.0% in their sixties.

The Law for Promotion of Effective Utilization of Resources came into being in 2003, but due to almost no computers being recycled, a new version, the PC Recycle Law, was enacted in 2008. About all I know about it is that it means that you cannot throw away old computers and monitors, etc; you have to pay a fee to get them collected. Therefore, I have sitting in my trunk room an old motherboard and flat-screen monitor that I don’t really feel like paying a fee for, so they might sit there until we move house.
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Another quick survey from goo Ranking to finish off Sunday, this time looking at what rules people follow to have an enjoyable solo holiday.

Demographics

Between the 23rd and 25th of March 2010 1,128 members of the goo Research monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 50.5% of the sample were female, 15.1% in their teens, 16.9% in their twenties, 28.8% in their thirties, 21.1% in their forties, 9.4% in their fifties, and 8.7% 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.

B-grade delicacies have been getting a lot of coverage on the television over the last couple of years – they are the soul food, I suppose, of the region; Osaka would be okonomiyaki or takoyaki, or for a reference from my home country, Glasgow would be deep-fried Mars Bar washed down with Irn Bru.

I don’t know if I have any particular rules when I’ve been on solo holidays; before I got married I did travel a bit around the Kansai region and didn’t often ask the way, but that was as much due to not knowing the language and being an anti-social git!
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Here’s an interesting look by goo Ranking at why people are determined to successfully diet, with separate results for both men and women.

Demographics

Between the 23rd and 25th of March 2010 1,128 members of the goo Research monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 50.5% of the sample were female, 15.1% in their teens, 16.9% in their twenties, 28.8% in their thirties, 21.1% in their forties, 9.4% in their fifties, and 8.7% 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.

My reason for losing weight is that we both need to lose weight and my wife has said she will if I do. I’m surprised that that reason didn’t come up in the survey. I also need to lose weight as I’ve fallen into the metabo bracket due purely to me not breathing in enough when they measured my waist! I was less than a centimetre over the limit, honest!
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It’s been a while since I’ve done a FAIL survey, so I’m sure you’ve all missed them. This time it was goo Ranking looking at internet shopping site FAILs.

Demographics

Between the 23rd and 25th of March 2010 1,128 members of the goo Research monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 50.5% of the sample were female, 15.1% in their teens, 16.9% in their twenties, 28.8% in their thirties, 21.1% in their forties, 9.4% in their fifties, and 8.7% 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.

I don’t think I’ve had a failure shopping for a while, as it’s almost exclusively services or downloadable software I purchase. I did have a failure when I switched my domains to GoDaddy, then after a year they billed me for some useless directory service – I’ve since changed everything over to Namecheap.com who are, as the name suggests, cheap and, more importantly, do not try to upsell you at every opportunity. They also do domain anonymising at a very reasonable rate.

The wife buys some waffle cakes online occasionally, but I can’t help thinking that since a branch of the waffle shop is located at the next station down the line, we’d be cheaper buying from there.
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With tomorrow being Mothers Day in Japan, here’s an interesting look by iShare at issues relating to Mothers Day.

Demographics

Between the 19th and 22nd of April 2010 468 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 59.0% of the sample were male, 29.9% in their twenties, 33.1% in their thirties, and 37.0% in their forties.

I never had a period of hating my mother, and I’m not just saying that because I know she reads my blog! However, I’ve never bought her a Mothers Day present as she doesn’t believe in that sort of thing, although I did once send her a bunch of flowers that I won in a Mothers Day promotion at a supermarket. The wife makes sure her mother gets a present every year, and this year was an alpaca cushion with a cherry blossom pot-pouri in its bum…
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