I had one of these “you know you’ve been in Japan too long” moments reading this list, as for three or four of them I had to stop and think if they really were Japanese inventions, 和製英語, wasei eigo, Japanese-style English! How many of these expressions that the Japanese didn’t know were Japanese-English, as reported by goo Ranking, did you have to mentally double-check? The survey was conducted between the 28th and 30th of August 2007. Read the rest of this entry »
This rather revealing ranking survey by goo Ranking looked at what expectant Japanese women hope their husbands can do regarding childcare. I think the average western person (both male and female) may be surprised at how basic many of the hoped-for actions are. The fieldwork was conducted between the 20th and 24th of July 2007, but no further demographic information was given. Do any of my readers have first-hand experience of Japanese fathers as I cannot really believe that such basic tasks need to be wished for! Read the rest of this entry »
Just a couple of days ago there was a report from Reuters on a forthcoming Daddy exam for Japanese fathers to hone their parenting skills on. Looking around the Japanese web I found many weird and wonderful exams and qualifications, or 検定, kentei as they are called in Japaneseso for your enjoyment and edification I present the top ten strangest qualificatons I came across!
10. Mount Fuji Master
As the Japanese proverb says, “He who climbs Mount Fuji once is a wise man, he who climbs it twice is a fool.” Perhaps there should be an extension to cover those who sit all three levels of the Mount Fuji Kentei? Whether or not any of the questions involve the vending machines at the top of the mountain is unknown.
9. Comic Certification
I suppose it is inevitable that there is a manga-based examination. This one by ebook Japan offers three levels of certification in the way of Japanese comics from beginner to master otaku. If the subject matter is too broad, they offer separate qualifications for specific comic book series from Princess Princess to Ge Ge Ge no Kitaro. Read the rest of this entry »
Here’s another entertaining find from goo Ranking, this time the top ten actions that women think makes men look manly. The fieldwork was conducted between the 20th and 24th of July 2007, but as usual no further demographic information was available.
Sadly there is no guys rating women equivalent of this survey published yet, but if it appears I’ll be sure to report on it.
I thought that smoking activities were rather high on the list, and does choosing a drink for the ladies really impress them? Quite frankly, most of the answers are characteristics I might expect to see in hosts, not the average guy. Perhaps these results go some way to explain why host bars exist? Read the rest of this entry »
For me, the big thing I wished I’d done by thirty was worked abroad; I did get an opportunity to go to work in Paris for at least six months when I was about 27 or so, but I thought of too many excuses as to why I shouldn’t or couldn’t take up the offer. Regretting turning that down was one of the reasons I jumped at the chance of coming to Japan, in fact. Finding a local was also something I suppose I would have liked to have done, but I’d probably have turned into a horrendous alcoholic had I managed! Read the rest of this entry »
I just spotted an interesting survey from Japundit on who the Japanese think do the nation proud internationally. The original from Oricon can be found here, where it says that the fieldwork was conducted between the 16th and 20th of August 2007 by means of an internet-based questionnaire posed to 2,000 members of its online monitor panel. The group was split 50:50 male and female, and there were 200 of each sex in five demographic groups; high school students, college and university students, people in their twenties not in education, in their thirties, and in their forties. I believe that they were only allowed to chose people from the entertainment and sporting worlds.
It’s an interesting list; see Japundit for the full details, but Ichiro top for men seems odd from my point of view, but perhaps not odd if I think from a Japanese perspective. Ken Watanabe and Beat Takeshi are good choices for two and three, but then there’s Kimu-taku (Takuya Kimura), one of the pretty boys from SMAP, a long-running boy band. Similarly Kazunari Ninomiya of Arashi, despite having appeared in “Letters from Iwo Jima”, is another odd choice, as just being a singer does not really contribute that much to the world at large. However, as a Scot, I’m glad to see Shunsuke Nakamura in at number six as he struts his stuff at Glasgow Celtic Football Club as proves that number 7, Hideki Nakata, was not just a one-off.
For the women, I find it a bit harder to comment, and if you asked the average person in the street in Europe or the USA, I suspect the only Japanese female people could name would be Yoko Ono (who is, I believe, actually a naturalised American these days). About the only other I am really familiar with is Tetsuko Kuroyanagi, who does a lot of good charity work for UNICEF.
This is the second in a pair of separate but related surveys; this one being a lighter look at for what reasons do people change jobs by goo Ranking, with the previous by Yahoo! Japan Value Insight being a serious look at the job hunting market. Between the 20th and 24th of July 2007 an unspecified number of people who wanted to change jobs were asked the question.
I don’t really think there are too many differences between the reasons for dissatisfaction in Japan when compared to the West. Read the rest of this entry »
I think foreign residents in Japan actually seem on average to be better users of chopsticks than the Japanese, although I have absolutely no data to back up that claim, nor a similar claim that most foreigners’ chopstick skills outdo Japanese’s cutlery skills. However, there are a multitude of finer points of etiquette regarding these implements that may not be familiar to many of my readers, nor to me for that matter, so to see what faux pas our hosts may be looking out for, or indeed doing themselves, let’s look at a couple of surveys from goo Ranking on bad chopstick habits people have and bad manners in others that they can’t help noticing. Both surveys were conducted between the 20th and 24th of July 2007.
For me, in Q1 I do 1 rarely, 2 a bit with soba, and 5 sometimes. One manner not noted is rubbing the ends of your sticks together to get rid of splinters, which is apparently an insult to the restaurant or host that you think their chopsticks are cheap and splinter-prone. Read the rest of this entry »
Although there seems quite a disparity between the list presented below and Dark Diamond’s report on the top 100 anime of all time and Japan Probe’s reports on the top 50 according to Japan’s Agency for Cultural Affairs, I hope this list can spark similar debates as to what are the classics from the last decade, or that had at least some episodes first broadcast in the 1990′s. So, without any further ado, I present the top thirty 1990′s anime that the Japanese would most like to see once again. Note that this list contains only series whose run has ended. The data was collected from an unspecified number of members of goo Research’s online monitor pool between the 20th and 24th of July 2007. The scores represent the relative number of votes each anime series received relative to the number one selection. Here’s a short clip from YouTube of the top anime.
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