世論 What Japan Thinks

On television last night I watched my favourite program, “If I were Prime Minister”, which instead of the usual format of debating a political topic of the day, decided to run a vote by the public of the top ten people who have ruined the Japan of today (the translation of the key term is rendered by one online dictionary as buggered up). They also did a more positive who has made the Japan of today better survey, so I will present the results of both surveys here.
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With a new government in place I was hoping for a more interesting set of expectations from the Japanese government, but the goo Ranking results were quite frankly bland.

Demographics

On the 19th of November 2009 1,166 members of the goo Research monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 59.9% of the sample were female, 13.4% in their teens, 20.6% in their twenties, 28.2% in their thirties, 23.2% in their forties, 8.3% in their fifties, and 6.3% aged sixty or older.

My number one hope is for a country where the Prime Minister has vision, and can implement that vision. Koizumi did, but the three guys following him had nothing or just wooly dreams of a “beautiful country”, and now we have a guy whose wife has visions, but he is wasting all his political capital trying to keep the two miniscule minority parties happy with his “fraternity” ideal.
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Having looked in October at nuclear power in the Kinki region, today the topic is also nuclear power, but with a sample from all over the country, in a survey conducted by the Cabinet Office Japan.

Demographics

Between the 15th and 25th of October 2009 3,000 members of the public randomly selected from resident registries were approached for face-to-face interviews. 1,850 people, or 61.7%, agreed to take part in the survey. More detailed demographics were not given.

In Q5, the NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) factor is rather high, but it’s not a surprising result. However, financial support (or bribes, I suppose) to communities hosting nuclear plants is something the government does, or more correctly did, as one of the many victims of the Democratic Party of Japan’s slash-and-burn attack on spending has been the abolition of the said government subsidy/bribe. The lack of this will surely affect local opinion in the areas that get selected for high-level nuclear waste disposal facilities.
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One of the last great acts of the ex-Prime Minister Taro Aso was to propose a palace to celebrate his favourite hobby, manga. The new government cancelled the plans, but Meiji University has proposed its own library of manga, anime and doujinshi, basically self-published manga, often based on professional works, and often rather adult-themed. To see what their rather geeky members thought, iShare conducted this survey into manga and anime sub-culture.

Demographics

Between the 26th and 28th of October 2009 456 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 55.3% of the sample were male, 31.8% in their twenties, 33.8% in their thirties, and 34.4% in their forties.

I thought Aso’s Anime Palace was a collosal waste, but I support to some extent the effort by Meiji University to collect together this significant sub-culture, even though most of the figurine and doujinshi gives me the willies.
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Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the last month or two you surely must have heard about the Democratic Party of Japan winning the recent general election. During the run-up, I steered away from publishing polls regarding it as there are blogs out there with much better political coverage than me, and anyway since the election outcome was pretty much a foregone conclusion, I didn’t really find them that interesting.

However, now with the election out of the way, here’s a quick look by iShare at ,a href=”http://release.center.jp/2009/09/1801.html”>expectations for the new Japan. Note that iShare’s monitor demographic is I feel quite geeky, so it may be a bit fraught with danger to extrapolate these results to the general public.

Demographics

Between the 31st of August (the day after the election) to the 3rd of September 2009 523 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private online questionnaire. 56.4% of the sample were male, 32.1% in their twenties, 31.9% in their thirties, and 35.9% in their forties.

For me too uncertainties outweigh expectations. Being a non-car-owner with a full time homemaker wife I fall outside the two large demographics that are going to get benefits thrown at them, and although them promising to cut wasteful public spending is of course a good move (assuming they can achieve their goal, of course) so far all I have seen is measures that put even more people out of work in a time of record unemployment, without a concrete plan for job creation.
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With Twitter showing little sign of adoption in Japan, and TwitterPoli, a site tracking Japanese politicians’ Tweets, having just 10 local officals and 6 national politicians being tracked, this recent survey from MyVoice looking at local government Tweeting (and other related topics) seems a bit pointless, quite frankly.

Demographics

Between the 22nd and 27th of July 2009 562 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 56.0% of the sample were male, 34.5% in their twenties, 32.9% in their thirties, and 32.6% in their forties.

What Japan Thinks can be found on Twitter; most of the content is just automated Tweeting of my posts, but two or three times a week or so I post one-liner survey translations that don’t make it to the main blog.

Note that the Twitter usage rate of 6.2% in this survey versus 2.3% in the previously-mentioned survey can be ascribed to iShare having a more technically-minded audience; the simple fact that the survey respondent pool comes from people using an email forwarding service demonstrates this.

The two local authorities mentioned in Q4 can be read on Twitter; the links are Aomori Prefectural Office (ooh, nice background!) and Hokkaido Rikubetsucho.

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With the recent introduction of the Eco Points system of awards for buying environmentally-friendly products (although there’s still no system for spending said points), this recent survey conducted by goo Research and reported on by japan.internet.com into said Eco Points system found that digital terrestrial-ready televisions were the most popular electronics that fall under the system’s umbrella.

Demographics

Between the 20th and 22nd of May 2009 1,088 members of the goo Monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.9% of the sample were male, 16.6% in their teens, 18.0% in their twenties, 21.2% in their thirties, 16.2% in their forties, 15.8% and their fifties, and 12.1% aged sixty or older.

If you wish to take advantage of the system yourself, you need to keep both the shop receipt and the guarantee that usually comes in a green envelope. In addition, if you wish to take advantage of bonus points for getting your old items recycled, also keep the recycling receipt. You then take them all along to the appropiate desk at your local city hall (I think) to get credited the points, then wait until the rewards are decided. I saw on a program last week that they are thinking of offering regional delicacies and other over-priced tat.
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Following up on the 12,000 yen cash handout to every resident, the Government of Japan is next having an Eco Point system, where for buying certain energy-efficient home electronics you get a 5% point award in return that you will be able to cash in for some as-yet not-very-well-specified items. To see what people think of this, Macromill Research recently conducted a survey on the Eco Point system.

Demographics

Over the 27th and 28th of April 2009 516 members of the Macromill monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. The sample was split exactly 50:50 male and female, and 20.0% of the respondents were in their twentes, 20.0% in their thirties, 20.0% in their forties, 20.0% in their fifties, and 20.0% aged sixty or older.

I’m not really sure of a good reason why people wouldn’t buy energy-efficient items in general. Thinking about it there are good reasons not to buy some items just because they have a stamp on them as often there is a higher price tag and the payback period may be longer than the lifetime of the item itself.

I also can’t help worrying that the stimulus package will encourage people to dispose of items which still have some life left in them, rendering a net negative effect on the environment. My television is a six year old standard tube-type television, but I see no reason why I should bin it now to buy a new set as it is still perfectly serviceable. However, looking at the results of Q4SQ1 almost half of the sample expect to see a positive environmental outcome.
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One of the Japanese government’s economic stimulus plans is to decrease the tolls on all roads to just 1,000 yen maximum per day on weekends and public holidays starting on the 28th or March, and from the 12th March 2009 they also introduced a subsidy of 5,250 yen for cars and 15,750 yen for motorcyclists who fitted ETC devices, Electronic Toll Collection devices, as the system only applies to ETC card holders. To see what people thought of this, DIMSDRIVE Research loooked at ETC purchase support system and toll road usage discounts.

Demographics

Between the 4th and 16th of April 2009 5,547 driving license-holding, and with a family car, members of the DIMSDRIVE monitor group completed a private online questionnaire. 52.9% of the sample were male, 0.2% aged 18 or 19, 11.8% in their twenties, 36.9% in their thirties, 29.9% in their forties, 14.9% in their fifties, and 6.3% aged sixty or older. 69.2% were the main users of a car, and the other 30.8% had access to the family vehicle.

Note that even without the discount system or for weekday usage, fitting an ETC makes sense as fees are slightly lower as you get charged for the exact distance you travel, not a rounded-up fee; on the Osaka to Kobe expressway, for instance, it is normally a flat fare of 700 yen, but with ETC if you only travel part-way you get a refund as you exit.

In Q9, it seems odd that even those without ETC will increase their usage.

One issue that gets swept under the carpet is the increase in CO2 and other pollutants caused by heavier vehicle usage, and also there may be heavier traffic, causing jams and higher fuel consumption from idling. Here’s an interesting set of figures found on Google about how small towns create disproportionate amounts of CO2.
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With the date for the 12,000 yen handout to all residents of Japan getting closer (perhaps…), here’s a short look at opinions on the cash handout in a survey conducted by goo Research in conjunction with the Mainichi Shimbun.

Demographics

Betwen the 23rd and 25th of January 2009 1,056 members of the goo Research monitor panel aged 20 or older completed a private internet-based questionnaire. No further demographic information was given.

This whole cash handout business has been nothing but a farce since it was first announced. Originally it was going to be a tax cut, but that does not benefit non-taxpayers, so it became free money. However, some of the issues that have come up are the method of distribution – currently it is envisaged that everyone has to go to their local city office, but that means cities need to employ lots of extra staff, and it’s been estimated that another 25% or so overhead is needed to get it distributed. Then the Prime Minister himself first said he wouldn’t take it, then he was saying he hadn’t ruled out that he would, then he would, and I think the latest situation is that he is undecided again.

One of the blogs I regularly read on Japanese politics talked about this in detail; a representative article on this matter from GlobalTalk 21 is here.
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