Archive for Silly

Lonely feelings from disappearing items in Japan

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At the world marches on, fixtures from our childhood become outdated and start to disappear, leaving just an empty feeling behind. This survey from goo Ranking looked at what disappearing items make the Japanese feel lonely

Demographics

Between the 21th and 24th of October 2008 1,056 members of the goo Research online monitor panel completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.5% of the sample were female, 5.0% in their teens, 13.2% in their twenties, 28.4% in their thirties, 31.5% in their forties, 13.1% in their fifties, and 8.8% 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 can think of a lot of intangible items I miss, but as for the tangible, I do miss line printers with fan-fold paper! As a developer, running over a set of A4 pages with too much word-wrapping is just not as satisfying nor as productive as a heap of fan-fold. From the list, 18, quiz programs with members of the public is the one I can most identify with.
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Ill-remembered scientific principles in Japan

I’m sure in school and university we all got our fill of scientific laws and principles that we have long-since forgotten bar the names. To see how the Japanese fare on this, goo Ranking performed this survey on remembered names but forgotton details of scientific principles.

Demographics

Between the 24th and 26th of September 2008 1,044 members of the goo Research online monitor panel completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 50.6% of the sample were male, 5.8% in their teens, 12.7% in their twenties, 32.3% in their thirties, 27.6% in their forties, 12.3% in their fifties, and 9.3% 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’d never heard of the Mpemba effect before, and the first one I could definitely explain is Schrödinger’s Cat. I got Einstein’s theories confused – E=mc2 is special relativity; general relativity is gravity and time dilation. I only managed three others I could recall! How did you get on?
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FAIL Japan!

It’s perhaps a meme (sorry for using that word; I dislike it, but it fits here) that has overstayed its welcome on the internet, with places like FAIL Blog documenting failure in pictures, or The Register with its slightly too swearie-word-filled Fail and You column, but it was the best way to headline this survey from goo Ranking on sensing that moment of defeat, to translate just a bit too literally.

Demographics

Between the 21th and 24th of October 2008 1,056 members of the goo Research online monitor panel completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.5% of the sample were female, 5.0% in their teens, 13.2% in their twenties, 28.4% in their thirties, 31.5% in their forties, 13.1% in their fifties, and 8.8% 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 FAIL! moment that I often have is that once every two weeks is paper and metal rubbish day, the next or sometimes previous day is plastic and glass, so it’s going out to throw out stuff on the second day and realising that I’ve got the days back to front.
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Hated housework in Japan

As a bonus for today, here’s a second silly survey from goo Ranking, this time looking at what hosework Japanese people find the most bother, for both men and women.

Demographics

Between the 25th and 28th of July 2008 1,072 members of the goo Research online monitor panel completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 50.3% of the sample were male, 5.7% in their teens, 14.4% in their twenties, 31,0% in their thirties, 28.1% in their forties, 10.5% in their fifties, and 10.4% 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.

At home I do and enjoy most of the washing of dishes, throwing out the rubbish, hoovering, and garden maintenance, but I hate the most doing the toilet, but luckily my wife takes most care of that. Cleaning the air conditioner is probably the most bother as we have a high ceiling and some of the air conditioner covers are a bit broken!
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Bad table manners Japanese just can’t break

A while back I took a look at bad chopsticks habits, but this time goo Ranking expanded the field to cover bad table manners people just can’t break. However, this time we didn’t get a breakdown by sex.

Demographics

Between the 24th and 26th of September 2008 1,044 members of the goo Research online monitor panel completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 50.6% of the sample were male, 5.8% in their teens, 12.7% in their twenties, 32.3% in their thirties, 27.6% in their forties, 12.3% in their fifties, and 9.3% 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 occasionally do 3, I must admit, and at home I always lick the yoghurt lid, and my wife gets annoyed at me sometimes when I don’t do triangle eating. Other than that I claim to be free of all the other habits!
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Ita-sha – painful cars from Japan

Do you want a moe paint jobbed ita-sha? graph of japanese statisticsI was prompted to translate this survey by Mari’s recent mention of such cars. Ita-sha, literally painful cars (to look at, or from the point of view of the car?), painted up with anime characters of the so-called moe kind, which usually means infeasibly large-breasted schoolgirls. This recent survey published by iShare on the topic of car customisation found almost one in three willing, to use the vernacular, to rice up their cars.

Demographics

Between the 25th and 27th of October 2008 424 members of the free email forwarding service CLUB BBQ completed a private online questionnaire. 53.8% of the sample were male, 15.3% in their twenties, 49.3% in their thirties, 26.7% in their forties, and 8.7% in their teens or fifty or older. The sample is a bit small to draw conclusions from, but the topic is quite fun so it would be a shame not to translate this one.

I’ve never seen a manga-adorned car myself, although there is no shortage of be-spoilered and be-skirted mini-vans farting around town with their after-market exhausts which certainly qualify as ita-sha in terms of my own eyes and ears.
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Being number one among your Japanese friends

Here’s a fun survey from goo Ranking that I’d love to hear everyone else’s input on! The looked at what people secretly think they are number one for amongst their friends. Sadly there wasn’t a male/female split!

Demographics

Between the 24th and 26th of September 2008 1,044 members of the goo Research online monitor panel completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 50.6% of the sample were male, 5.8% in their teens, 12.7% in their twenties, 32.3% in their thirties, 27.6% in their forties, 12.3% in their fifties, and 9.3% 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.

Apart from obviously being the most handsome amongst my fellow gaijin bloggers, I secretly believe that I put the most effort per post into my blogs compared to you lot of slackers who just slap up a few videos from YouTube mixed in with a bit of Engrish and… Oops, I just remembered that the survey isn’t “Why are your friends all useless?” ;-) :-) ;-)

What’s your secret boast? Don’t worry, I won’t tell.

(I also didn’t repeat my previous mistake when translating number 3 here)
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What Japanese do when nobody’s around

This ranking survey from goo Ranking may very well make you laugh out loud as yes indeed, the number one action that people get up to when no-one’s around is what you are thinking it is! Both women and men were separately reported.

Demographics

Between the 24th and 26th of September 2008 1,044 members of the goo Research online monitor panel completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 50.6% of the sample were male, 5.8% in their teens, 12.7% in their twenties, 32.3% in their thirties, 27.6% in their forties, 12.3% in their fifties, and 9.3% 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 wife would probably claim that I don’t bother waiting for no-one to be around before doing most of these actions!

How many do you do?

View Results

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No What Japan Thinks No Life

Sadly, the title of this post was not one of the answers in this quickie from goo Ranking, looking at filling in the blank in the slogan “No ____ No Life”. The slogan for Tower Records in Japan is “NO MUSIC, NO LIFE”, the inspiration for this survey.

Demographics

Between the 24th and 26th of September 2008 1,044 members of the goo Research online monitor panel completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 50.6% of the sample were male, 5.8% in their teens, 12.7% in their twenties, 32.3% in their thirties, 27.6% in their forties, 12.3% in their fifties, and 9.3% 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.

This is just about the easiest survey post I’ve ever made as all the slogans were already in English!
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Why Japanese can’t get promotion

I know yesterday was Silly Sunday, but I’ve had this survey sitting on my hard disk for ages, so I thought I’d just get this look at why people think they can’t get promotion, conducted as usual by goo Ranking.

Demographics

Between the 25th and 28th of July 2008 1,072 members of the goo Research online monitor panel completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 50.3% of the sample were male, 5.7% in their teens, 14.4% in their twenties, 31,0% in their thirties, 28.1% in their forties, 10.5% in their fifties, and 10.4% 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.

None of the answers were “Because I spend all my time filling (or translating for that matter!) these stupid surveys”, however.

I was also rather free with my translation of answer 2.
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