世論 What Japan Thinks

It’s been a while since I’ve posted the results of a survey on QR Codes (these two-dimensional bar code things) but this one from Marsh Inc and reported on by japan.internet.com is worth the wait.

Demographics

Between the 20th and 24th of January 2010 300 members of the Marsh monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. The sample was exactly 50:50 male and female, 2.7% in their teens, 17.3% in their twenties, 20.0% in their thirties, 20.0% in their forties, 20.0% in their fifties, and 20.0% aged sixty or older.

A number of PC internet-targetted services – Yahoo! Maps springs to mind, and I think I’ve seen them for hotel bookings – display a QR Code that contains a URL that summarises the data on display in a mobile-friendly format. They also offer an option to email the URL to a mobile, but perhaps people worry about submitting their mobile email address and ending up being a spam target.

My two “Other” places for reading a QR Code was from a friend’s corporate PC inventory tag and from my health insurance card, just to see what information was encoded in both places.
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Palm reading is, of course, a load of nonsense based around cold reading, but regardless I felt this recent survey from goo Ranking looking at what lines people don’t want to have on their palms was worth translating just for the names of some of the lines that I suspect might have been made up just for the sake of the survey…

Demographics

Between the 18th and 21st of December 2009 1,077 members of the goo Research monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 51.0% of the sample were female, 8.7% in their teens, 15.3% in their twenties, 27.0% in their thirties, 27.8% in their forties, 11.9% 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 find it quite amusing that the bottom of the list is the pervy line, perhaps there ought to be a follow-up survey on what lines people wish they had. The original Japanese article describes exactly where each line can be found should you really wish to check your own hand.

The photo to the right is used with kind permission from Lee at Tokyo Times. It shows a street palm reader – in the evenings around most major stations you can usually find one or two of them plying their trade. Please click through to the original posting to see the image full size.
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Here’s a fun look with goo Ranking at what moments people feel their age, for both women and men.

Demographics

Between the 18th and 21st of December 2009 1,077 members of the goo Research monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 51.0% of the sample were female, 8.7% in their teens, 15.3% in their twenties, 27.0% in their thirties, 27.8% in their forties, 11.9% 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.

For me it has to be when I first realised I was older than all the current Formula 1 drivers! The other occasional moment is when I catch some UK TV and see some person I haven’t seen for a good number of years and notice that they’ve aged.
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Here’s an interesting look with iShare at driving, looking in particular at poor driving habits.

Demographics

Between the 4th and 7th of January 2010 495 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 55.4% of the sample were male, 33.5% in their twenties, 31.9% in their thirties, and 34.5% in their forties.

In Q2SQ1 the issue of “paper drivers” is highlighted – paper drivers is a Japanese expression (it’s actually the English words that are used) that indicates people who are qualified on paper but never actually do much if any driving. I’m probably borderline paper myself as my driving is limited to renting a car just a handful of times every year.

In Q2SQ2, I wonder if we can assume that the 25% who drive to the speed limit are regular speeders? On empty motorways I might occasionally wander one or two kilometres per hour over the limit, but on busy urban highways and surface streets I do usually run just a little bit under the limit and I certainly do always maintain my distance from the car in front.
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The winners of the 2010 New Year Postcard lottery for the Year of the Tiger have been announced, and the winning numbers and prizes are as follows. The number to check is the six digit number at the bottom right of the card. Note that some cards do not actually have numbers, which means they are not eligible…

First prize: 975424

Choose any one from a 32 inch Sharp Aquos LCD televison, a JTB holiday, either three nights in Hawaii or Hong Kong, 2 nights in Korea, or one night in one of 58 domestic hot springs resorts, Toshiba dynabook EX notebook plus Casio EXILIM EX-Z450GD digital camera plus Canon PIXUS MP560 printer, Canon iVIS HF21 video camera, or 200,000 yen’s worth of office furniture from an ASKUL catalogue.

Second prize: 630838, 446722, or 259668

Choose any one from a Nintendo Wii plus Wii Sports Resort, Canon XY DIGITAL 220 IS digital camera, Toshia portable DVD player SD-P73DTW, Sharp Plamsa Cluster air purifier KC-Y45-W, or 30 kilogrammes of rice.

Third prize: last four digits 0977

Choose any one food item from 38 different ones on offer, from a tea blend for the Imperial Hotel to canned crab soup.

Fourth prize: last two digits 52 or 00

Otoshidama stamp set – a fifty yen and an eighty yen stamp, pictured above.

C Gumi Special prize: 27520

50,000 yen’s worth of JTB holiday vouchers. The “C Gumi” is apparently something to do with carbon offest New Year Postcards.

If you have matched any of these, go to your nearest post office before the 26th of July 2010 and either collect the stamps while you wait, or apply for any of the bigger prizes. The full prize line-up can be seen here. I’ve just checked mine and I’ve won two sheets of the stamps above.

For a change, this recent survey from iShare into music downloading laws found a significant number willing to admit their thievery.

Demographics

Between the 5th and 8th of January 2010 443 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 58.7% of the sample were male, 30.7% were in their twenties, 30.7% in their thirties, and 38.6% in their forties.

As I’m not the sort of person who downloads music willy-nilly just for the sake of filling up their iPod, I’ve never downloaded more than just a dodgy track or two. I’m probably also being a fuddy-duddy by saying that the iPod and said illegal downloading just because one can is a behaviour I cannot condone in the slightest, and I’m sure in some way contributes towards the youth of today having the attention span of a goldfish. I used to play just the one CD or tape for about a week or more, but when I last had my hands on a SonyPod, I found myself filling it up with all my CDs then spending more time skipping than listening. Oh, and the software was useless and at least twice wiped its own database.

Anyway, back to the survey. This month the law has changed such that downloading illegally uploaded contents is now illegal.
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With Windows 7 just two months old, this survey from goo Research, reported on by japan.internet.com, into home computers, looking in particular at Windows 7, found over 10% of users had already adopted it.

Demographics

Between the 14th and 19th of January 2010 1,087 members of the goo Research monitor panel completed a private intenet-based questionnaire. 53.0% of the sample were male, 16.6% in their teens, 17.9% in their twenties, 21.8% in their thirties, 16.0% in their forties, 15.5% in their fifties, and 12.1% aged sixty or older.

I run Windows Vista on my desktop and Windows XP on my netbook, but I have no intention of upgrading either the netbook as it probably doesn’t have the horsepower to make much difference, or the desktop as we need the Ultimate pack to support a separate language for each user.
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iShare recently published a curious set of results from a survey they conducted into nameplates outside Japanese homes.

Demographics

Between the 17th and 22nd of December 2009 531 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 55.2% of the sample were male, 33.3% in their twenties, 34.3% in their thirties, and 32.4% in their forties.

One interesting fact I recently learnt about Google Street View Japan is that in responce to claims about privacy infringement, as well as blurring out faces and car registration plates as they do elsewhere, they also blanked out nameplates for Japan only.
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Recently there was a rather unfocused article by japan.internet.com on a survey conducted by goo Research into home electrical appliances that didn’t really reveal anything interesting, so pleae feel free to browse to another page… This is apparently the third in a series of regular surveys on the topic.

Demographics

If you’re still here, I’ll inform you that between the 21st and 25th of December 2009 1,076 members of the goo Research monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 53.2% of the sample were male, 16.2% in their teens, 18.1% in their twenties, 21.4% in their thirties, 16.4% in their forties, 15.8% in their fifties, and 12.2% aged sixty or older.

The biggest surprise in Q1 is that although 69.9% have a portable computer (although previous surveys have shown that they don’t tend to get ported much), just 7.0% have a netbook. On the other hand, it’s not really a surprise since computers don’t get carried around there’s no motivation to get a lighter netbook.

Furthermore, the selection of ETC electronic toll payment devices seems a bit of stretch as a domestic appliance…
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Well, some of the words in the list have an even longer pedigree, but most of the ones in this list from goo Ranking of Showa era (1925-1989) words that people don’t know the meaning of.

Demographics

On the 19th of November 2009 1,166 members of the goo Research monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 59.9% of the sample were female, 13.4% in their teens, 20.6% in their twenties, 28.2% in their thirties, 23.2% in their forties, 8.3% in their fifties, and 6.3% aged sixty or older.

This survey will be of most interest to students of the Japanese language, although I hope others can also enjoy it.

For these students of the language, I used a rather good online Japanese slang dictionary (note, Japanese only) as reference for the meaning of a few of the words.

It’s a bit of a curious twist that the only word I (and probably most of my readers) recognise is the number one unrecognised word, kimosabe!
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