世論 What Japan Thinks

[part 1] [part 2] [part 3]

DIMSDRIVE Research recently performed a survey to find out what people thought about kimonos. Over one week at the end of January, they got 7,607 people, 60.4% female, from their internet monitor group to reply to the questionnaire. 1.6% of the respondents were in their teens, 19.6% in their twenties, 36.6% in their thirties, 26.2% in their forties, 11.9% in their fifties, and 4.1% sixty and over.

This second half sees some more interesting statistics. Most people don’t buy their own kimono, but I would like to know why. Is it a coming of age present? A wedding present? Do they get them new or as hand-me-downs?

It is also interesting how the kimono’s image is foremostly positive, with the top two answers praising it, but then followed by four very negative images.
Read the rest of this entry »

[part 1] [part 2] [part 3]

DIMSDRIVE Research recently performed a survey to find out what people thought about kimonos. Over one week at the end of January, they got 7,607 people, 60.4% female, from their internet monitor group to reply to the questionnaire. 1.6% of the respondents were in their teens, 19.6% in their twenties, 36.6% in their thirties, 26.2% in their forties, 11.9% in their fifties, and 4.1% sixty and over.

Note that I believe that the 浴衣 yukata and 甚平 jinbei, the cheap summer wear that resembles just a fancy dressing gown more than a formal item of clothing, is excluded from this survey; they are focusing on the posh ceremonial item here. I base this supposition on “fireworks display” or “summer festival” not being listed as answers to the question on the place that people last wore one, as at these two places one regularly sees many young people kitted out in cheap and colourful loose cotton garments.

Personally, I’ve never worn a kimono nor have any great urge to wear one, although I should compare the results of this survey with my views on kilts. I own a kilt, which I’ve worn to three weddings here in Japan, and it always goes down well with the natives. In deference to Japan, and betraying my heritage, I do wear Hello Kitty boxers underneath…

This survey will be split into two parts, published today and tomorrow.
Read the rest of this entry »

Regardless of how long I live here, and how often people try to explain the Yakuza to me, I always shake my head in disbelief when I see stories like this one on the guys who put the Organised into Organised Crime.

Crime syndicates in Japan had around 86,300 members as of Dec. 31, down some 700 from a year earlier, marking the first drop in 10 years, the National Police Agency said Thursday. The Kobe-based Yamaguchi-gumi, accounted for 50.1% of all the members, passing the majority threshold for the first time.

What sort of questionnaire got these answers? Do the gangs submit annual reports? I can only imagine the text: “The chairman reports that outstanding bad debts are down 22.9% due to a 16.3% increase in the number of kneecaps broken. Workforce loyalty is also strong, as indicated by a two-thirds reduction in pinkie removals.” Three significant figures of accuracy suggests relatively detailed numbers are being obtained from somewhere, but where?

Note that the graph above may not, in fact, be truthful. In fact, I may very well have made it all up!

goo Research, in cooperation with the Nikkan Kogyo Shimbun Ltd, performed an internet-based survey in Decemeber of 2005 amongst 1,076 people regarding their views on NEETs and Freeters. At the same time, 218 companies also answered a similar set of questions, and the answers have been gathered together for presentation in this report, although the text does not make it clear whereabout the company answers have been included. Unfortunately, neither the sex nor the age breakdown of the survey is available, as that might have provided extra clues to interpreting the results.

First, I had better translate a couple of terms. NEET, or Not in Education, Employment or Training, was first coined in the UK to refer to teenagers, mainly, who left school with neither a job not ongoing education lined up. In Japan, it refers to a much wider population; there is no age limit, and as for employment, NEETs may do casual or very short-term labour (in fact, there are a number of heavily-advertised web sites that advertise these pocket-money jobs) and may very well have completed a university degree, but due to various factors have not decided to commit themselves to a job. I am not sure from where exactly they get money to support themselves, but it is most likely from their parents.

Freeters, on the other hand, is a purely Japanese word, formed by taking the English word “freelance”, or perhaps just “free”, and the German word “arbeiter”, meaning part-time, or at least not a full employee, 正社員, seishain. Many of the part-time jobs are in the service industry, so a freeter may flit from flipping burgers in McDonalds for three months, to doing the late night shift at the local convenience for another two months, to two weeks not working at anything at all.

The essential difference is perhaps that a NEET spends more time not working whereas a Freeter works just enough to fund his own time off. Along with the overall decrease in young people, with NEETs and Freeters not contributing much in the way of taxes, the ability of the government to pay pensions in the future is further threatened by the casualisation (is that a word?) of the workforce.
Read the rest of this entry »

Last August, Central Research Services, Inc performed a survey regarding the introduction of lay judges to the Japanese judicial system by questioning 1,384 adults from an initial pool of 2,000 by means of face-to-face interviews. This is the third time they have carried out this survey, once in 2003 and once in 2004, so the main text will compare this time’s results with previous results. The results were presented mainly as a textual report rather than raw data, so that is the way I too will present this translation.

The system of lay judges was passed into law in 2004 and is due to be introduced in 2009. One thing I always regretted when I lived back in the UK was never being asked to serve on a jury, as being a very civic-minded sort of person, seeing first-hand and participating in the legal process would be quite an honour to me. A friend of mine once sat on a jury for someone charged with nicking car radios. After the first and only day at trial, my friend went back to his car and found, rather ironically, that his radio had also been pinched.

The support for this new law, however, has grown weaker, shrinking from about half the population being behind it two years ago to now just over a third. In addition, as can be seen from the pie chart on the right, just one in twenty has the confidence in their own abilities to perform as a law judge.

Note that Japan has not had a trial by jury system since 1943.
Read the rest of this entry »

With the 11th anniversary of the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake (Kobe and surrounding area) on 17th of January 1995 being today, I thought it would be appropriate to present this survey by the Japanese Government’s Cabinet Office regarding people’s opinions on earthquakes. Out of 10,000 people asked, 7,232 people completed questionnaires regarding earthquakes over a two week period at the end of September. Demographic information is available at the end of the survey. Note that for a change, because this was a personal interview-based survey the age spread is much broader than most of the internet-based polls I present. All questions were answered by all 7,232 respondents.

For the last few years, at least once every couple of months there has been a special on TV regarding earthquakes, covering in particular how everyone is going to die horribly when The Big One hits Tokyo. In amongst the tabloid sensationalism is, however, the occasional nugget of useful information. Two nights ago, for instance, they covered how to escape from a lift stuck between floors, then emergency toilets, including how much water is needed to flush a standard three-jobbie plus loo roll down to the nearest main sewer pipe (five litres to go 15 metres, in case you’re wondering and I’m remembering correctly).

This survey was taken before the Aneha scandal blew up, so perhaps if this survey was repeated today, the answers would be rather different.

Although the above-mentioned Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake happened before I came to Japan, I have talked to a number of people who were living in Kobe at the time, and almost everyone had some tale of personal or family-related disaster that really impressed upon me the human scale of the disaster. I recommend anyone with the opportunity to talk to someone from the area to sensitively enquire about their experiences.
Read the rest of this entry »

DIMSDRIVE performed internet-based research involving 5,274 people in September of last year to find out which country’s citizens would people most want to marry. It is not stated whether or not the people interviewed were single or not.

The Asia versus the West split is quite noticeable in the men, but really striking amongst the women. I previously translated statistics regarding international marriages in Japan that shows that the ideals being expressed here do not seem to be realised.

On a slight tangent, I watched the last episode of an NHK English learning program which features an English-speaking Western blonde angel that prods a clueless office worker along the path to success at her job getting a date with her transferred from New York colleague, the ideal tall, muscular, tanned, well-coiffured white executive. The angel’s job was done because the glaikit Misaki finally pulled her man.
Read the rest of this entry »

[part 1] [part 2]

goo Research, along with Yomiuri Weekly, carried out a massive poll amongst working women. For a week at the end of September this year, over 10,000 working women aged 20 and over completed an internet-based questionnaire on their thoughts and opinions. Twenty years ago, the Equal Employment Opportunity Law was passed, so this is an investigation into how the position of working women has changed.

This second half of the survey sees working for the government as very popular, but engineering-based companies like Toyota and Sony are in the top three, with NTT and IBM also showing up. Two perhaps softer, more feminine companies, Benesse and Shiseido also do well, and with livedoor in sixth, perhaps its well-known distinctly non-Old Boy president indicates to women that the company may be run in a more welcoming, and dare I say Western, fashion.

Note also that the majority of women have felt sexual discrimination at work, and in particular two in five women have experienced problems in the area of salary, promotion, and work and family life balance.
Read the rest of this entry »

[part 1] [part 2]

goo Research, along with Yomiuri Weekly, carried out a massive poll amongst working women. For a week at the end of September this year, over 10,000 working women aged 20 and over completed an internet-based questionnaire on their thoughts and opinions. Twenty years ago, the Equal Employment Opportunity Law was passed, so this is an investigation into how the position of working women has changed.

It’s quite a depressing set of figures, I feel. Not just discrimination, but harassment seems endemic amongst firms, and women are so used to it that they perhaps don’t consider the everyday discrimination as abuse. On a more positive note, however, almost half the women want to have the opportunity to have a full career not terminated nor even just punctuated by baby-rearing, although I personally consider that a child during the first three years of life needs one full-time parent.

Note that here almost three in five report being touched up, which is very depressingly high, but sexist language is barely half that, which suggests to me that women on the whole are accepting of, or at least inured to, that sort of behaviour.

I also wonder how much under-reporting has happened – note that in Q1 people report that they were expected to do the woman’s work around the office, yet there seems no specific category for this type of harassment. Also, office parties are notorious for the boss getting drunk (or faking drunk) and pestering his female underlings, but perhaps this is seen as outside the work environment thus not job-related harassment?
Read the rest of this entry »

Since it’s nearly the holiday season, let’s look at fun in Japan!

goo Research, in conjunction with NTT Resonace anand Mitsubishi Research, carried out a survey of 30,456 members of their internet monitor group in mid-September to find out what was their definition of fun. The respondents were 57.3% male, with 1.5% aged nineteen or under, 23.8% in their twenties, 40.3% in their thirties, 23.6% in their forties, 7.9% in their fifties, 2.0% in their sixties, 0.4% in their seventies, and 0.5% did not disclose their ages.

One surprising figure is the mere two percent who find enjoyment through religion or supernatural stuff. The actual number of members of religious groups is around 8.8%, so it seems not very many people at all derive pleasure from their practice. Perhaps, as Marx said, religion is the opium of the people from which the majority of people derive merely reassurance to keep them secure. Of course, as a member of Soka Gakkai myself, I would say that most of the people I know who practise do indeed appear to derive pleasure from their activities.
Read the rest of this entry »