世論 What Japan Thinks

With the last posting day before New Year getting ever closer, this survey from goo Research, reported on by japan.internet.com, into New Year postcards is a reminder to us all to get ours finished.

Demographics

Between the 29th of November and the 1st of December 2011 1,083 members of the goo Research online monitor panel completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.9% of the sample were male, 16.5% in their teens, 18.3% in their twenties, 21.4% in their thirties, 16.2% in their forties, 15.7% in their fifties, and 11.9% aged sixty or older.

I haven’t actually got round to even ordering my New Year postcards yet, and as I’ve been at our work Christmas end of year party tonight I’m in no fit state, so that’s another day closer to the deadline… Note, I’ve prepared this post ahead of time, so any mistakes are just the usual me, not the beer’s fault!
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The Cabinet Office Japan recently conducted a detailed survey into diplomacy, a topic they revisit about once every two years or so.

Demographics

Between the 29th of September and the 16th of October 2011, 3,000 people aged twenty or older were randomly selected from residency registers were approached for one-to-one interiews. Of the 3,000, 1,912 people, or 63.7% were resident at the adress and willing to answer the questions. 52.5% of the sample were female, 8.2% in their twenties, 14.7% in their thirties, 14.8% int heir forties, 16.6% in their fifties, 22.8% in their sixties, and 22.8% aged seventy or older. 44.4% were employed, 9.8% were self-employed, 2.9% worked in a family business, and 42.9% were one of full-time homekeepers, students, unemployed, or retired.

The second half looked at actual diplomatic strategy. I was suprised to see a vast majority favouring maintaining or increasing current UN PKO activities. In calmer areas they can contribute, but I’m not really sure how Japan’s Self Defence Forces would react if there is shooting involved, and with recent talk about dispatch to South Sudan, I feel that they’d just get in the way. I remember in Iraq how they needed another country’s army to form a buffer between them and any potential threats.
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The Cabinet Office Japan recently conducted a detailed survey into diplomacy, a topic they revisit about once every two years or so.

Demographics

Between the 29th of September and the 16th of October 2011, 3,000 people aged twenty or older were randomly selected from residency registers were approached for one-to-one interiews. Of the 3,000, 1,912 people, or 63.7% were resident at the adress and willing to answer the questions. 52.5% of the sample were female, 8.2% in their twenties, 14.7% in their thirties, 14.8% int heir forties, 16.6% in their fifties, 22.8% in their sixties, and 22.8% aged seventy or older. 44.4% were employed, 9.8% were self-employed, 2.9% worked in a family business, and 42.9% were one of full-time homekeepers, students, unemployed, or retired.

This survey was reported on last week in the papers, but the English translations seemed to focus mostly on the relationship between the USA and Japan; the level of relationships with Japan’s Asian neighbours is a much more interesting statistic, however.
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A recent survey from goo Research, reported on by japan.internet.com, into public libraries, with the report in particular looking at what services people want to see.

Demographics

Between the 18th and 23th of November 2011 1,092 members of the goo Research monitor group completed an internet-based questionnaire. 52.7% of the sample were male, 16.5% in their teens, 18.2% in their twenties, 21.2% in their thirties, 16.5% in their forties, 15.7% in their fifties, and 12.0% aged sixty or older.

I’m sure that every time this subject appears I talk about joining my local library, yet I am still to do anything about it!

Research results

From the sample, 47.2% of them often or occasionally visit public libraries. They were asked the following question.

Q1: What services would you like to see at your public library? (Sample size=515, multiple answer)

	Votes	Percentage
Search for books in stock	275	53.4%
Reserve books	264	51.3%
Read ebooks	186	36.1%
Look up library facilities, opening hours, etc	182	35.3%
Provision of wireless LAN hotspot	175	34.0%
Internet-connected computers in the library	162	31.5%
Digital music distribution service	138	26.8%
Provision of space to listen to music, watch movies	121	23.5%
Other	22	4.3%

In addition, 35.5% often or sometimes used the internet service provided at their library.

Macromill Research recently took a look at the subject of men and cooking.

Demographics

Between the 28th and 30th of October 2011 516 male members of the Macromill monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 25% of the sample were in their twenties, 25% in their thirties, 25% in their forties, and 25% in their fifties. In addition, 312 female members were also interviewed, also with 25% in each of the age brackets.

I actually got asked to do the cooking on Sunday evening as my wife had a sore hand, but she decided to soldier on and all I ended up doing was peeling the spuds and a turnip…
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Macromill Research recently took a look at the subject of men and cooking.

Demographics

Between the 28th and 30th of October 2011 516 male members of the Macromill monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 25% of the sample were in their twenties, 25% in their thirties, 25% in their forties, and 25% in their fifties. In addition, 312 female members were also interviewed, also with 25% in each of the age brackets.

I very rarely cook, although I do often help out in the kitchen. When I do cook, my speciality is quiche; everything else turns out a bit ordinary, and I am teribly slow. On the other hand, I do love baking, although I don’t do that as much as I would like. I bought some scone mix at the weekend, so sometime round about Christmas I’ll whip up a few.
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A recent survey from goo Research into communication with school in times of disasters was conducted in conjunction with http://wdsd.net/, another company in the same NTT Resonant group as goo Research that provides mailing list services to schools for communicating with parents and guardians in times of disaster and other occasions.

Demographics

Between the 27th and 30th of October 2011 350 parents or guardians of middle school or high school children who lived in the Eastern or Northern areas of Japan (one of Tokyo, Kanagawa, Chiba, Saitama, Tochigi, Ibaraki, Gunma, Yamanashi, Nagano, Niigata, Aomori, Yamagata, Akita, Iwate, Miyagi, or Fukushima Prefectures) completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 54.0% of the sample were male, 8.0% in their thirties, 64.0% in their forties, 27.7% in their fifties, and 0.3% in their sixties.

Note that the areas surveyed were those that were affected the most by the March 11th earthquake, which is a focus of many of the questions below.
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A number of clinics these days offer services for making reservations online, a service I have availed myself of once or twice.

Demographics

Between the 14th and 17th of November 2011 1,081 members of the goo Research monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.5% of the sample were male, 16.4% in their teens, 18.5% in their twenties, 21.7% in their thirties, 15.8% in their forties, 15.9% in their fifties, and 11.7% aged sixty or older.

With ordinary clinics, the way reservations work is rather than reserving a time, one reserves a place in the queue, and the system will email you back once you get close to the head of the queue, so one can minimise the sitting around in the waiting room time. I’m surprised my regular skin clinic hasn’t adopted it, as they have a manual system which on weekends means that phoning in at about 9 am means one might get seen by 6 pm on a good day.
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goo Research recently conducted an interesting survey, reported on by japan.internet.com, into geiger counters.

Demographics

Over the 24th and 25th of October 2011 1,089 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 53.5% of the sample were male, 16.9% in their teens, 17.9% in their twenties, 21.6% in their thirties, 16.0% in their forties, 15.9% in their fifties, and 11.7% aged sixty or older.

I suppose if I was intellectually bankrupt and just wanted to get hits for this story by getting spread to the more excitable corners of the web, I should have entitled the story something like “Four in five Japanese will DIE of STUBBORNNESS”, and indeed I wouldn’t be too surprised if it gets picked up anyway and repackaged with a similar scary line. Anyway, I believe that geiger counters are actually relatively difficult to use accurately, and for perhaps the biggest source of (mostly unfounded) worry, foodstuffs, they are pretty much useless, but yet I hear that people in Tokyo supermarkets do wave them over the veggie stalls. I wonder how they react to bananas and Brazil nuts?
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japan.internet.com reported on the second regular survey into saving electricity by goo Research. The first survey may be found here. Note that the dates of the survey indicate that it was conducted after TEPCO removed their restrictions on electricity usage in Tokyo and the surrounding areas, and after Tokyo had survived the summer without any blackouts or even brownouts.

Demographics

Between the 12th and 14th of September 2011 1,087 members of the goo Research completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.9% of the sample were male, 15.9% in their teens, 18.5% in their twenties, 21.5% in their thirties, 16.2% in their forties, 15.7% in their fifties, and 12.1% aged sixty or older.

There seems a popular misconception amongst some foreigners in Japan that the only effects of the electricity-saving activities was cutting down domestic wastage and making people go home on time, thus proving that the electricity provided by nuclear power stations is not really necessary. However, this ignores the under-reported (or just plain ignored as inconvenient) problems that small businesses had, many forced to drastically cut back production to avoid fines of 1,000,000 yen per hour each time they failed to use 15% less than the previous year during peak times – unfortunately, I cannot find a story online about it. In July the current Prime Minister (he was Finance Minister then) highlighted that power costs (due to increase 10% for Tokyo this coming year) may drive firms abroad; indeed this has already started.

In addition, tonight I saw a short item on a news program about electricity pricing and other issues. First, electricity prices are set by law to cover assets, salaries, fuel and promotional activities, then 3% profit on the top. Thus, the generating boards are under no pressure to cut staffing costs (the average director, usually ex-finance ministry, gets just under 40 million yen a year) and can actively buy assets to increase their profits, while passing on all the costs to the user. Next, there is a small degree of competition from independent companies, but they are only allowed to target large users, and access to the electricity grid for them costs about 7 times that in the US. They showed that even with these restrictions, by converting a large-scale housing complex to the independent supplier, who offers smart meters to each householder, the price to the consumer was about 5% less per unit, and by using data from the smart meter and matching usage to tariffs, they could save a further five percent, despite all the handicaps described above.
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