世論 What Japan Thinks

With today being Husband and Wife Day in Japan – the date is 11/22, and one way of pronoucing the numbers is ii fuufu, or in kanji 良い夫婦, which means “Good Husband and Wife” – here is a short but perhaps sweet survey from goo Ranking on the secrets of maintaining that newlywed feeling. As usual, no demographics information bar that the data was collected between the 25th and 27th of September 2007. Presumably the respondents were all married. Separate rankings for male and female would have been welcome, but perhaps that wouldn’t be in keeping with the spirit of the day.

What’s your secret? Mine is plently of hugs.
Read the rest of this entry »

I just spotted this quickie survey today and it suited my mood, so following up on a survey a few weeks ago on bad habits of spouses, here’s a look at bad habits in the office, courtesy of goo Ranking. The fieldwork for this survey was conducted between the 25th and 27th of September 2007.

My top three pet hates would be sniffing and slurping (both acceptable Japanese habits) followed by just too much chat, but since most of them are going to be in the office for 12 hours per day or so, idle chit-chat shouted across the desks helps pass the time, but still it GETS ME VERY IRRITATED!

A purely hypothetical situation, of course, but if the rest of your colleagues are sitting and standing around talking in loud voices and laughing, is writing blog posts no worse than taking part in the conversation yourself?

By the way, does anyone know about any experiments with cubicles or even private offices to see how they affect Japanese productivity? However, without changing the underlying culture, I can only see separate spaces being counterproductive.
Read the rest of this entry »

It’s Sunday, so it must be Silly! This week’s oddity is from the masters of silly, goo Ranking, with a look at closet stinginess in men and women. The demographics for the survey are as vague as ever; all we know is that the data was collected between the 25th and 27th of September 2007.

If you want to be stingy in Japan yourself, may I heartily recommend Nihon Hacks as a great place to find money-saving tips.

In Japanese the word 節約, setsuyaku, means to economise, to save money, and has mostly good connotations. However, for this survey the word used was ケチ, kechi, which is a mostly negative term usually translated as stingy or penny-pinching.

Note that I would classify some of the actions as canny rather than stingy. Canny is using discount coupons, stingy is refusing to go near a shop unless you have said coupons. Oh, and if you find change in a vending machine, legally you must hand it in to the police.

For me personally, in the guy list I do just 4, 5, 7 and 15. My meanness is usually restricted to just not spending if at all possible!
Read the rest of this entry »

Recently goo Ranking, a Japan public opinion survey organisation, posted the results of a look at the political world from a rather interesting angle. The respondents were asked to choose their most good-looking world politician or leader in a poll conducted between the 25th and 27th of September 2007. Note that this poll drew its sample from the goo Research monitor pool, so there would be little or no opportunity for ballot stuffing. 100 points are awarded to the top vote-getter, and the other scores are the percentage of votes of the winner that each of the rest received. By sex, the votes were very similar, although Tony Blair won more female hearts than Shintaro Ishihara.

I find it surprising that Bill Clinton (or even Al Gore) doesn’t appear anywhere, however, and personally I’d have voted for Nelson Mandela, another curious omission.
Read the rest of this entry »

With the Tokyo Motor Show in full swing, it might be fun to have a look at this ranking survey from goo Ranking into what collaboration projects they’d like to see from car makers. The only demographic information available is that the data was collected between the 25th and 29th of September 2007.
Read the rest of this entry »

Here’s this week’s Silly Sunday survey. This time it was goo Ranking looking at aspects of expressing interest, or detecting if interest was being expressed. There was what men think is the most effective way to go for the kill and what women think is the most effective way to go for the kill; then what women’s actions men think indicates they may have a chance and what men’s actions women think indicates they may have a chance. I hope you get the idea, but if not, just read on and all may become clearer! The surveys were conducted between the 25th and 27th of September 2007.
Read the rest of this entry »

Looking for a cheap tour of Tokyo or the surrounding area this autumn? To help you choose where to go, goo Ranking decided to ask what under 10,000 yen Hato Bus tour from their autumn schedule people would like to go on. As is par for the course, there was no demographic information supplied barring that the fieldwork was carried out between the 25th and 27th of September 2007.

Hato Bus run a full set of English tours too, should this survey whet your appetite.

Oh, and I have no idea what on earth number seven has to do with autumn, but it really does exist! Oh dearie me!

My apologies for the above link; calm your eyes with a soothing Hello Kitty bus or two.
Read the rest of this entry »

Following up, I suppose, on a recent ranking survey regarding what were the basic dealbreakers for potential spouses, goo Rankings came up with another entertaining survey looking at what husbands’ bad habits wives want to tell them to fix, but just can’t, and vice versa. The survey was conducted between the 28th and 30th of August 2007.

My wife informs me that she has no bad habits that I should ask her to fix (now that’s a bad habit that doesn’t feature on the list!), but my two main bad habits also don’t feature on the list, namely adjusting the lay of the land, as it were, and noxious gas emissions.

I suppose that number 15 for men and 18 for women is shorthand for a lack of rumpy-pumpy.
Read the rest of this entry »

Here’s a fun survey from goo Ranking on what foreign food chain people would like to see open near to their homes. The survey was conducted between the 28th and 30th of August 2007.

Looking at the list, Subway is about the only one I’d want near to home. Taco Bell seems a curious one to appear in the list; I’m not aware of any in Japan, and Mexican food of any kind is definitely a rarity in Japan.

The still stupidly-popular Krispy Kreme Doughnuts is due to open their second shop on the 12th of October 2007 at Yurakucho in Tokyo, it seems.
Read the rest of this entry »

goo Ranking came up with another of their interesting ranking surveys; as always, the accuracy of the figures and the method for collecting the data is unclear, but hopefully the results make up for the potential lack of quality! Between the 28th and 30th of August 2007 goo Ranking performed a survey asking women about the basic preconditions for potential husbands and men about the basic preconditions for potential wives.
Read the rest of this entry »