世論 What Japan Thinks

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The Cabinet Office Japan recently released a survey into people’s thoughts about public safety in Japan. 3,000 people aged 20 or older were chosen by random, and between the 14th and 24th of December 1,795 of them, or 59.8%, took part in face-to-face interviews. Of those who did not participate, 124 had moved, 79 were on long-term absenses from home, 365 were not at home, 58 could not be found, 514 refused to participate, and 65 did not take part for other reasons. Demographically, 54.1% were female, 8.9% between 20 and 29, 15.0% between 30 and 39, 16.9% between 40 and 49, 21.9% between 50 and 59, 20.7% between 60 and 69, and 16.7% aged 70 or older.

The “gaijin hanzai” comment is related to the recent uproar regarding widespread availability of a magazine playing on precisely the fears expressed in this survey.

When I first heard about this survey I was really keen to get hold of it and translate it, but when I saw quite how much the fear of the foreign peril seems to have been stirred up, I got quite depressed. When the news of this poll appeared on Japan Today I posted a sarcastic comment (that got pulled by the moderators!) about how I was disappointed that foreigners did not make the list of dangers in that summary by Kyodo News. Little did I know that it was perhaps selective editing by the press so as not to hurt our English-speaking feelings. About the only bright spot I can find is that international terror organisations, etc, (with that “etc” covering local terror groups, the main ones so far that have actually attacked Japan) are not high in people’s concern. Note though that Q5 mentioned only international terrorists, there is no “etc”, or other questions on local loony groups.
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According to the Center for Multicultural Information and Assistance (多文化共生センター) and reported on in the Kobe Shimbun, the easiest places in Japan for foreigners to live in were the prefectures Kanagawa and Hyogo (my home), and the cities of Kawasaki, Yokohama, and Osaka (my previous home city and the location of my employer).

Doing poorly were the perfectures of Ibaraki, Hiroshima, Kochi, Fukuoka, Oita and Kagoshima on twenty to twenty-nine points, and right at the bottom with nineteen or less points each were Aomori, Aichi, Saga, Nagasaki and Okinawa. It is significant to note, I think, that Aichi has many, many foreigners residing there working for Toyota and related companies, Nagasaki is rather international, and Okinawa of course has lots of USA military bases.

UPDATE: Scott and Durf have provided information (see comments below) on how the points were awarded. I’ll translate the list of questions tonight, if possible.

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Over ten days in the middle of November last year the Cabinet Office Japan conducted an opinion poll regarding the matter of organ transplants. Of the 3,000 randomly selected people from all over the country, 57.6%, or 1,725 people, successfully completed the survey in face-to-face interviews. 52.9% were female, 9.8% in their twenties, 14.9% in their thirties, 16.1% in their forties, 20.8% in their fifties, 19.4% in their sixties, and 19.2% aged seventy or older.

The final section discusses the issue that perhaps generates the most discussion in the foreign community, the legal ban on under 15 year-olds donating organs. This forces many parents with terminally ill infants to seek treatment overseas, usually in the USA. Note that Q14 specifically mentions this issue, thus perhaps slightly biasing the respondent towards selecting a pro-transplant stance.

It’s interesting to note that the answers in Q16 for respecting the wishes of a child are almost identical to those for respecting the wishes of an adult.
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[part 1] [part 2] [part 3]

Over ten days in the middle of November last year the Cabinet Office Japan conducted an opinion poll regarding the matter of organ transplants. Of the 3,000 randomly selected people from all over the country, 57.6%, or 1,725 people, successfully completed the survey in face-to-face interviews. 52.9% were female, 9.8% in their twenties, 14.9% in their thirties, 16.1% in their forties, 20.8% in their fifties, 19.4% in their sixties, and 19.2% aged seventy or older.

Here, only 7.9% of the population have donor cards, and of those who have them, two in five are still to indicate their choices on the card, making it less than one in twenty of the population from whom organs can be taken for transplant. As a comparison, in the UK 23% of the population are registered donors.

The questions on differentiating between brain death and actual heart stopping death in Q10 to Q13 are especially interesting. This suggests that the Japanese bascially see brain death the same way as cardiac death. Interestingly, the term “brain death” was not elaborated upon within this survey as it is a more severe state than persistent vegetative state which is perhaps what people associate with the term; I, for one, was unaware of the distinction.
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[part 1] [part 2] [part 3]

Over ten days in the middle of November last year the Cabinet Office Japan conducted an opinion poll regarding the matter of organ transplants. Of the 3,000 randomly selected people from all over the country, 57.6%, or 1,725 people, successfully completed the survey in face-to-face interviews. 52.9% were female, 9.8% in their twenties, 14.9% in their thirties, 16.1% in their forties, 20.8% in their fifties, 19.4% in their sixties, and 19.2% aged seventy or older.

This is another subject that generates a lot of comment from foreigners, but up until now I have never seen any hard figures on the situation. I hope my readers too can get as much out of this data as I did. I also hope my translation is accurate enough!

Since this is quite a lengthy survey, it will be published in three parts.
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The Cabinet Office Japan recently published the results of a survey into the lay judge system to be introduced in 2009. Over ten days in the middle of December last year they selected a random sample of 3,000 people aged 20 years or older, of which 1,795, or 59.8%, chose to respond to the survey. More detailed demographic information is yet to be published.

This is another topic where I translated a survey last year. I was always disappointed that I never got selected for jury duty when I was back home.
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Just a quick pointer to an article they posted there on various statistics regarding marriage in Japan.

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Last weekend goo Research, in conjunction with Yomiuri Weekly, released the results of a survey into what people thought the coming year may bring. For a week spanning the end of November and the start of December 11,648 members of goo’s online monitor group successfully completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 53.2% of the respondents were male, 5.9% in their teens, 18.9% in their twenties, 29.9% in their thirties, 21.5% in their forties, 11.9% in their fifties and 11.8% aged sixty or older.

Q7 is interesting in that the more negative effects of the flood of retiring baby boomers seem to be more in people’s mind than the positive benefits.

Note that there was an extra question in the survey regarding people’s favourite female “announcers” (Japanese uses that English word, but their role is more like an MC or an MC’s assistant, or even just a TV personality), but I find the obsession slightly – I can’t really think of a suitable word, but their role seems to be to smile prettily, be demure, then get married off to a sports personality once they approach their television sell-by date. Therefore, I’ll skip that question.
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[part 1] [part 2]

Last weekend goo Research, in conjunction with Yomiuri Weekly, released the results of a survey into what people thought the coming year may bring. For a week spanning the end of November and the start of December 11,648 members of goo’s online monitor group successfully completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 53.2% of the respondents were male, 5.9% in their teens, 18.9% in their twenties, 29.9% in their thirties, 21.5% in their forties, 11.9% in their fifties and 11.8% aged sixty or older.

The economic outlook in Q4 seem very bleak, but remember this is the viewpoint of the average person in the street, not the pronoucements of politicians, as there seems to be a lot of pundits suggesting that the recent economic growth in Japan has not trickled down to the workers, but instead has been used for investment or passing on to shareholders.
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In addition to the the question posed in the headline, I’d like to ask my Tokyo-based readers if your Japanese friends have tried taking you there, and what did they want to take you to there?

I discovered today another new-to-me web site, but this time it’s of a rather prominent research company, Macromill Inc. They’ve got some interesting opinion poll results on their site, but one that caught my eye was this one on the image of the towns within Tokyo. Over one day at the end of September last year they interviewed 1,032 people from their online monitor group, evenly split 516 male and 516 female, and each sex also evenly split with 129 people in each age band from between 20 and 29, 30 to 39, 40 to 49, and 50 years or older.

This is a slightly old survey, and since I am not a Tokyo expert by any long shot, I’ll skip a full translation (although give me a shout if you would like to see more!) and instead focus on the most relevant portion for my readers, a couple of images related to foreigners. Note that although the Japanese word 外国人, gaikokujin, means anyone from overseas, it is usually taken as referring to non-Asian foreigners. (Is it? I and many other English-speaking foreigners often assert this, but is there any evidence to support or disprove this supposition?)

Also note that Q1 specifically mentions foreigner friends, so it is presumably not just where they would recommend the average tourist should go. On the other hand, the respondent may be thinking of a friend from abroad coming to Tokyo for the first time, so perhaps it is the tourist spots that they are thinking of?
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