If you’ve ever lived in the Kansai area of Japan, you’ll surely have heard of the reputation of Osaka old ladies for their distinctive characteristics such as… Well, let’s just see what comes to mind when the Japanese think of Osaka grannies in this fun survey from goo Ranking. The fieldwork was done between the 19th and 21st of June 2007 amongst people from all over Japan.
KANJANI8 (or 関ジャニ∞ to use their Japanese name) sing a song “Osaka Obachan (old lady/granny) Rock” that can be viewed here, assuming it doesn’t get pulled due to copyright violations:
This is probably the strangest survey I’ve translated since my one on the top folklore and superstitions. This time we look with goo Ranking at the urban legends that might just be true. As I am no expert in Japanese rumours, some of the translations may be wrong, and some of the rumours just seem rather odd, but I hope my readers can help me out. The survey was conducted between the 19th and 21st of June 2007.
I thought that fan death was interesting – this is a popular legend in Korea, but I didn’t know anyone really took it seriously in Japan. Perhaps interestingly, number 10, skin breathing, comes from the Bond film Goldfinger. Ian Fleming invented other such rumours, for example the one about Sumo wrestlers being trained to retract their testicles, and that gay people cannot whistle. Finally, I’d be shocked, quite frankly, if there wasn’t a bomb shelter underneath the Diet! Perhaps, however, the rumours go further.
The delightful character pictured above represents the top behaviour (or should the be the bottom?) that Japanese find objectionable in drunks. Click on his sozzled visage, and for just 420 yen (US$3.50 or so) you too can take him, or one of his friends, home tonight! So, here we go with this pair of surveys from goo Research on what people end up doing when drunk and what behaviour in drunks other people find uncomfortable.
Demographics
Between the 19th and 21st of June 2007 an unspecified number of members of the goo Research online monitor group supplied their answers to the questions via a private internet-based questionnaire. As usual for goo Ranking, the top item gets 100 points, and the others get a score that corresponds to the percentage of votes in relation to the top voted item.
My biggest failing when drunk is I suppose talking in a loud voice, which seems to start even before I have any alcohol!
I found it interesting in Q1 that men flirt but women sexually harrass, according to the Japanese terms used to describe getting frisky after a couple of shandies. Read the rest of this entry »
…of in the summer, just to finish off the dangling headline. I’m back from my holidays, and back to stupidly hot temperatures around double of what I left back in the UK and Germany, so to tie in with the hot and humid weather right now (and it’s going to get a lot hotter and more humid before it’s done) let’s look with goo Ranking at what summer smells people hate. As usual for these ranking surveys, demographic information is not available, just that on the 22nd and 23rd of May a number of members of the goo Research monitor group completed an online survey on this topic.
One may notice that the top pong, body odour, relates to one of these things that foreigners hear (perhaps only from other foreigners?) about how the Japanese don’t sweat.
Finally, the kanji used in the headline, 悪臭, akushuu, consists of two kanji for bad and smell, and means exactly that. Read the rest of this entry »
Many Japanese hold the dream of retiring overseas (or do they? I must look up data!), so goo Ranking decided to investigate this issue by asking an unspecificed number of the goo Research online monitor group of unspecified ages if they were to retire and move overseas, which country or area would they most like to live in. The fieldwork for this research was conducted on the 22nd and 23rd of May 2007.
Perhaps connected to this, wifey has recently applied to Hilton Grand Vacations Club for us to go along and attend a 90 minute seminar on timeshares in Hawaii in return for 10,000 yen’s worth of food coupons. They are running the seminars every weekend at Tokyo and Osaka, so if you’re particularly bored this summer and don’t mind enduring some hard sell, why not go along and get free cash off them?
If I were to do so, going back to Blighty would seem like the obvious choice, but if we exclude there, New Zealand is the most attractive location, a bit like Scotland only with slightly better weather.
(I’ve just checked my dictionary, and the Antipodes is a rather UK-centric term for Australia and New Zealand) Read the rest of this entry »
If you asked a group of western foreigners what kindnesses they thought the Japanese were failing to do, undoubtedly Ladies First would appear near the top of the list. However, when goo Ranking asked the Japanese what kindnesses they themselves couldn’t do, Ladies First appeared nowhere on the list, not due to all Japanese men thinking they always show respect, but just due to the fact that Ladies First is not a concept that appears anywhere in Japanese etiquette. Read the rest of this entry »
With the advent of summer heralding the cockroach season, now might be a good time to stock up on various chemicals ready to murder the poor blighters should they make an appearance. So, why not buy the weapons of mass destruction that have been recommended by the readers of goo Rankings when they voted on which commercial insecticide they use the most to kill cockroaches. The survey was conducted on the 19th and 20th of April 2007.
One of my favourite subjects, and one of the perennial favourites of Google searchers, is Japanese teeth. With today being Dental Caries (Decay) Prevention Day (in Japanese, one way of reading June 4th is mu-shi, which is the first two syllables of the phrase 虫歯予防デー, mushiba yobou de-, or the aforementioned Dental Caries Prevention Day), let’s take a timely look with goo Ranking at what people are most afraid of when going to the dentist. Note that this survey excludes the contents of the treatment itself. Read the rest of this entry »
Between the 9th and 17th of May 2007 7,735 members of their monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 44.3% of the sample was male.
The delightful character pictured above represents the top behaviour (or should the be the bottom?) that Japanese find objectionable in drunks. Click on his sozzled visage, and for just 420 yen (US$3.50 or so) you too can take him, or one of his friends, home tonight! So, here we go with this pair of surveys from goo Research on 
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