Meet your author
Note this was totally rewritten in November 2007
After two years running 世論 What Japan Thinks, and with recent coverage in the press, I decided it was time to update this “about me and the site” section. It’ll be in the form of a series of questions and answers.
Why 世論 What Japan Thinks?
I first got the idea for this site after spending at least two years on and off looking for data on Japanese religious beliefs. We have probably all heard the statistic that 80%, 90%, or even 99% of all Japanese are either or both Shinto and Buddhist, but anyone living in Japan soon realises that this figure is bogus; religion observance on the whole is ritual or superstition, and these figures are no more valid than counting everyone in the West who sends a Christmas card as a Christian. So, one day I finally discovered a survey on religious observance, so I translated it and posted it to a bulletin board. It got zero reaction, and I left it at that for a couple of months.
However, on that bulletin board, and in other locations, when debate turned to looking at the Japanese psyche there were so many broad assumptions and personal opinions passed off as gospel with gay abandon. “All Japanese are …”, or the worse “Japanese are…”, followed by gross simplifications or flat out lies. I’d been trying to start a blog for a bit before then, so I thought if I could find out and present the facts it would provide a frame of reference for people, and hopefully make some money too. So, 世論 What Japan Thinks was born, initially as a Blogger blog.
Now, two years down the line, and with over 900 posts, I can look back on what I’ve done and be rather pleased with myself. I’ve also made a few good online friends which, if time permits, I might even get round to meeting in person some day.
Can you conduct a survey for me?
Please note that I do not conduct these surveys I report on, so I cannot perform ones to order. They are performed by major and minor Japanese survey companies and posted as press releases and other public reference materials. I have no special secret data source or other insider information. Please contact these companies for information on how to conduct market research in Japan.
Actually, I do plan one day to sponsor a survey, but that’s another story.
Can I use your data?
The data itself is uncopyrightable according to my understanding of copyright law, so do as you please. My additional text falls under normal copyright law, so you may either quote a reasonable degree of my content or paraphrase as required. Acknowledgement and a URL link are of course most welcome in return.
The limits are: please do not republish the whole article without asking first; please do not republish behind a pay site barrier; and please do not repackage and resell. For example, copying all my iPhone surveys and pasting them into a $50 ebook is out of the question.
Can I ask a question?
Sure, fire away. Email is best, but I don’t guarantee any turn-around time time, but I’ll try my best to answer promptly.
Can I advertise here?
I have an advertising options page here. Custom requests are also welcome, of course.
Can you do some consulting work for me?
I’d love to, but I don’t really have the free time, sadly.
How can I help you financially?
I used to ask for donations, but I’ve stopped that. Other than just buying advertising, a few ways are by buying mobile phone straps through this link, or if you want to sell stuff yourself, sign up under me at Share-A-Sale or Copeac, or
.
Can you add my site to your blogroll please?
No. To expand the answer, if you write stuff that I enjoy I may add you to my roll, or I may link to you from a story. From a search engine link profile point of view, I think blogroll links are overrated, especially when some sites have hundreds rolling down the page. A single contextual link in an article is, I believe, worth more as Google perhaps filters out the static sidebar links as just noise.
What other sites do you run?
My two main other sites are brainscannr and My Buddhist Name. I’ve also got a couple of other minor ones that don’t do much, and there’s also the weekly What Japan Thinks newsletter.
How much money do you make?
Not a lot, quite frankly! I have two main income streams, AdSense and a certain other scheme whose name I dare not mention, and multiple $10 per month or less schemes from FeedBurner Ad Network to AuctionAds. Counting just translation time I earn under 1,000 yen per hour. I’m still trying to work out how to do affiliate marketing.
Are you really an anti-social git?
“Yes” is probably the most accurate answer, with a tacked-on “…but I’m getting better”. I have very little free time, and what I do have I tend to spend with my wife, so I’m not available to go off to the pub at the drop of a hat. I am also rather horrendously shy, so I don’t acknowledge other gaijin-looking characters I see in the street. However, if you do see me, please come up and say “Hi!”; it would make my day! I used to be a biker and I would always nod or wave to my fellow riders as there is a lot of shared experiences and bonds between us, but I don’t feel that same link with foreigners in Japan.
Looking on the bright side, I’ve made a good number of friends through blogging and I do feel close to them, although (because?) we are separated by an electronic barrier.
Oh, and I don’t do SNS, Twitter, IM, Skype, etc. Sorry! However, WJT does have a FaceBook page that just serves as a placeholder, and I have a personal page too somewhere.
If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed, or check out my weekly newsletter. Thanks for visiting!
Read more on:45 Comments
»RSS feed for comments on this post · TrackBack URI
Subscribe to feed
Send to mobile
Subscribe to 世論 What Japan Thinks newsletter
Andy said,
June 30, 2007 @ 11:06
Great site Ken! I was interested in the Iphone survery - because one of my colleagues insisted that no one would want to buy one here in Japan. The survey suggests otherwise though - pretty interesting.
I am also turning into a long term resident here in jp. Having worked in translation and engineering now, I totally agree - there certainly are plusses and minuses to each situation!! The extent of standardization in documentation in Japan is incredible! - Sometimes we had to make the translation more bullet-proof than the original!! On the other hand, the extent of unpaid overtime in engineering/research is unfathomable!!! The only real similarity I have found is that in either case in Japan the customer is king almighty with thunder bolts.
As for the socialising with gaijin thing, my perspective is that in a country where the majority are Japanese, and given that I can communicate in Japanese, why would I have even a small proportion of gaijin friends (?).
I mean you start with a small set of foreign people anyway - and by the time you have weeded out the gits, the foreign people you can actually hang out comfortably and trust are naturally pretty low. That’s my take anyway!
In GENERAL though, I will also admit that I find the Japanese to be socially less selfish, more organized and more into give and take than foreigners. I think having a BBQ is the best test for this! - who brings food, who helps set up, who eats and drinks the most, and who leaves early without doing a scrap of cleaning!! It is pretty natural to become averse when you see foreigners come and go and take advantage of your Japanese friends.
There are an alarming number of people who want to introduce me to their gaijin friends though! Don’t really understand that… (^_-)
Have a good one,
Andy
Hoddie said,
July 21, 2007 @ 04:06
Great site, non sensationalist statistics for the sensationalist in all of us…I would like to see a nice wee graph representing where you get all your wee lovely statistics from…do you make em up or are they ぴったり?
Arni said,
July 30, 2007 @ 23:24
Just stumbled across this site when looking for information on Japanese mobile phone usage and the culture surrounding it. Very good site and a good source of information. I think it’s amazing that you don’t charge for your work and rely only on ad revenue and donations and I appreciate greatly the work that you do. The information I have found here will help me a great deal on a lecture I’m preparing.
Thanks again.
Cheers,
Arni from Iceland
Mena said,
September 30, 2007 @ 23:00
Hi there… I am a US student studying in Japan and found your site on accident.. awesome idea i’d say.. I’ve always wondered about what Japanese think about some things, and this is an ingenious way to look at it… Good work..
Carlos said,
November 11, 2007 @ 17:49
Hello Ken,
I just wanted to say that your blog is awesome, I love looking at quantitative data, especially about Japan. Keep up the good work! By the by, do you use any specific software to run your results? Like SPSS? or do you just use Excel? and how do you run the surveys? Do you go out on your free time and ask random people in your area questions? Sorry if I seem a bit intrusive, but I just wanted to learn a bit more about your method
Farika said,
November 15, 2007 @ 10:17
Ken,
What is the image of ベルサイユのばら doing in your profile (next to the ‘Donations’ paragraph)?
New fan,
Farika
Ken Y-N said,
November 19, 2007 @ 00:15
Hi Carlos, I do not conduct any of the surveys myself - they are all conducted by professional polling companies.
Nearly three in four Japanese workers dissatisfied with their current workplace: Survey : Japan Economy News & Blog said,
December 2, 2007 @ 22:40
[…] to Ken Y-N for another fascinating look into the numbers behind corporate […]
MLGrant said,
December 13, 2007 @ 12:57
Hi Ken!
Just found your website and wanted to thank you for this website! VERY informative, and yes, even inspiring (I’m a translator by trade and am looking into doing something similar to WJT but with technical articles). Keep up the great work!
MLGrant/Tokyo
D-isappointed said,
January 17, 2008 @ 15:23
I just have to say I was disappointed by your comment in one of your blogs “Japanese women dream of American men, “I’m not aware of any black Western role-models in Japan”. You seem to be an intelligent man and study statistics quite closely, before putting an opinion like that on a blog I would research it more closely. As a high school teacher in a rural town, students are well aware of famous black leaders of the past- Malcolm X, MLK- and of the present- Barack Obama, Oprah. They are also very interested in African American singers, actors, and athletes- Rihanna, Beyonce, Kobe Bryant, Michael Jordan, Denzel Washington, Will Smith- and so I just wonder how that opinion of yours was formed, or as a Caucasian male you chose to be ignorant of that. Also, you didn’t address nearly as much as the other side that Japanese men are very interested in American women (also again showing a biased opinion as a male) although American women were at the top of the chart. And that doesn’t only include Caucasian women either. As a 26 year old African American/Cherokee/Chinese/Irish woman, whenever I go out for an social occasion, I am approached by Japanese men who are interested in dating or something further.
Rohtash Chander Tandon said,
March 23, 2008 @ 02:57
Please visit http://www.sabetsu.rohtash.com and find discrimination by Japanese Police, Law Makers & Authorities with evidences. I will appreciate your contribution in order to get justice. Other site: http://www.rohtash.com
Thanks
Stacey said,
April 29, 2008 @ 23:14
Do you think that an Imo’s Pizza would be successful in japan? http://www.imospizza.com/
Ricardo said,
June 11, 2008 @ 01:24
What Do you think of japan thinkabaut the live?
Jasmine said,
June 18, 2008 @ 18:08
Congratulations
I like your website, it’s funny and very interesting, good job.
I put you on my favorites!
Lau said,
June 18, 2008 @ 18:09
I have a question,
People in Japan prefer a PC or a Mac?
Ben said,
June 27, 2008 @ 12:52
Very useful site - cheers!
Mark said,
July 5, 2008 @ 19:03
You are a total idiot! How in the world did you come up with such a hig figure for the cost of the SoftBank I Phone? It is no where near the price you are quoting per year. I can’t believe the presidnet of SoftBank hasn’t sued your ass off yet.
jiro said,
July 16, 2008 @ 12:46
D- issapointed you cant even lie !
Blythe said,
August 28, 2008 @ 22:45
Wow, Finally some statistics to back up ‘what Japanese think’. At first I thought you were Japanese so I thought “wow, someone is actually backing up the ‘we Japanese… ’statement with solid facts and figures”. I was disappointed to see that you were a foreigner. Not that that was a problem but I was just hyped that one of the natives was turning away from the usual litany (Japan has four seasons etc.) and backing up his statements with data. Maybe you will turn the tide. At least you will give me empirical backup when I counter the next ‘we Japanese’ proclamation
Everyone wants to know what’s really going on here, Keep up the good work.
-Robert
PS
I agree with d-isapointed but not as emphatically. A lot of girls here in Kanagawa (Yokosuka, Yokohama) are into the Black image that we see in the western media. I think you simply overlooked this.
One thing western guys (of every stripe) should be aware of is that most Japanese girls (in my opinion, sorry, no data) like the idea of a western guy (drooling all over himself, terminally nice) but are aware of the consequences of a relationship (parental scorn, having to adjust to a new culture, etc.) and opt for the easier route. There are a lot that will go for western guys but I’ve found that they are not the ‘usual’ Japanese girl.
kirk said,
October 27, 2008 @ 13:40
Really interesting, I’ll be sure to come back and check it out some more. I’ve recently started a site about my experiences in Japan over the past 5 years so I’m kind of doing some research. Continued success! Check mine out if you can eek out a moment.
Peace,
locohama