世論 What Japan Thinks

Japan has a million and one Days every year, with today, the 10th of October being marked as Moe Day, Look After Your Eyes Day, Fishing Day, Tuna Day, Tin Can Day, Public Bath Day, and no doubt many, many more. To investigate the awareness of these and other celebrations, iShare looked at October Days.

Demographics

Between the 16th and 24th of September 2009 591 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 57.9% of the sample were male, 34.9% in their twenties, 30.3% in their thirties, and 34.9% in their forties.

Moe, or 萌え in Japanese, is basically the love of cute animation or video game characters, which for me has undertones of unhealthy obsession, and its broad acceptance within Japan is one aspect of the country that I do not like at all. As to why today is Moe Day, let’s look more closely at how the 10th of October and Moe are written in kanji:

As to why the other Days fall on today, I am at a loss to tell you why, except for Public Bath Day. 10th October is 10/10, or 1010, or one thousand and ten, which can be pronunced in Japanese as sen-tou, which is also the pronuciation for 銭湯, public bath. I’m quite proud of myself for working that one out. Finally, 10th of October used to be Health and Sports Day, but from 2000 they moved it to the second Monday in October.

萌（♡´∀`♡）え
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My wife’s especially bad, and it’s rubbed off on me now, for cleaning out the shampoo, shoe shine clothes, laundry bags and all other freebies in a hotel room, so I was keen to see this survey from iShare on hotel amenities to see what the average Japanese thinks about such activity.

Demographics

Between the 14th and 17th of September 2009 506 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 55.1% of the sample were male, 36.4% in their twenties, 28.1% in their thirties, and 35.6% in their forties.

In case you’re wondering what Fremantle is doing in the headline, it’s a word that’s stuck in my brain ever since I read The Meaning of Liff by Douglas Adams back when I was in school. I’d be interested to know if any of my readers know the word.
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Having looked last week at how people are economising in general, today I’m looking at a survey from DIMSDRIVE Research into saving money on food.

Demographics

Between the 10th and 25th of June 2009 9,685 members of the DIMSDRIVE monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 50.3% of the sample were male, 1.1% in their teens, 12.3% in their twenties, 32.6% in their thirties, 30.7% in their forties, 16.0% in their fifties, and 7.3% aged sixty or older.

My eating at home has definitely increased the last year, and most of the saving money has been from buying pre-prepared salad from the supermarket rather than from one of the delicatessans in a department store.

In the final question, bean sprouts coming out as the most common cheap food highlights how much people are struggling. I can understand tofu, chicken and cabbage being popular substitutes for more expensive ingredients, but bean sprouts suggests desperation to me.
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Gender might have been a more correct word to use in the headline, but I’m sure it wouldn’t have got so many click-throughs! This recent survey from iShare looked at the interesting, but not as saucy as the title might suggest, topic of desired gender of bosses in Japan.

Demographics

Between the 10th and 15th of September 2009 555 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 57.1% of the sample were male, 35.1% in their twenties, 30.8% in their thirties, and 34.1% in their forties.

I’ve had my share of bosses of both sexes in Japan, and I can say that all bar one of the male bosses were awful. I don’t know whether it is the company training practices, promotion scheme, or just that most of them worked for or under others at some point and the uselessness rubbed off. The common faults in all their management styles are an inability to delegate meaningfully, presumption of their own correctness (reinforced by Japan’s sempai-kohai relationship) to the extent of ignoring differing opinions, and the ability to drone on at length on random subjects at the drop of a hat. Oh, and just in case my current male boss is reading, yes, that includes you too.
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A recent survey from iBridge Research Plus and reported on by japan.internet.com into the topic of web-based email amongst a young female demographic found almost a majority had a Yahoo! email account.

Demographics

On the 28th of September 2009 300 female members of the iBridge Research Plus monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 24.3% of the sample were in their twenties, 46.3% in their thirties, and 29.3% in their forties,

I did once try to recommend Gmail to my wife by sending her an invitation, but she never took me up, despite telling her about its excellent support for emoji!
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Here’s a fun survey from goo Ranking, looking at what white lies people can’t help telling to members of the opposite sex for both women lying to men and men lying to women.

Demographics

Between the 20th and 22nd of August 2009 1,077 members of the goo Research monitor group completed a private online questionnaire. 51.1% of the sample were male, 8.4% in their teens, 14.2% in their twenties, 26.7% in their thirties, 28.2% in their forties, 11.1% in their fifties, and 11.2% 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.
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Most mobile phones in Japan these days support not just static wallpaper, but also Flash-based animations, although the report by japan.internet.com on this survey from Point On Research into mobile phone wallpaper didn’t actually give any information on the uses of such animations, as the focus was on still pictures.

Demographics

On the 29th of September 2009 exactly 800 members of the Point On research monitor group completed a private mobile phone-based questionnaire. The sample was exactly 50:50 male and female, 25.0% in their teens, 25.0% in their twenties, 25.0% in their thirties, and 25.0% in their forties.

Q1 indicates a very curious demographic; the usual percentages for au and SoftBank are about 30% and 20%, but here we have a huge variation. Does their questionnaire web site not correctly operate on many SoftBank phones? Did SoftBank fail to deliver the request to participate in the survey?
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In the twelveth regular survey into electronic cash, conducted by goo Research and reported on by japan.internet.com, it is now not just credit card electronic cash that has passed the 50% penetration mark, but also mobile phones have reached that milestone, although the majority of the mobile phone contactless IC chips are lying idle.

Demographics

Between the 25th and 30th of September 2009 1,094 members of the goo Research monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.9% 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, and 27.5% aged fifty or older.

I don’t have an electronic cash-capable phone, but I recently bit the bullet and went for a smart card-based season ticket plus electronic cash functionality (Hankyu Stacia) and I must say it’s rather handy, although they have a horrendously unnecessarily complicated dual (could even be triple) parallel point system, although on my very first statement I got no points at all…
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Here is the second installment of a very interesting series of surveys from goo Research into mobile devices, as reported on by japan.internet.com. I translated the first installment last month.

Demographics

Between the 14th and 18th of September 2009 1,095 members of the goo Research monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.7% of the sample were male, 16/8% in their teens, 18.3% in their twenties, 21.5% in their thirties, 16.3% in their forties, and 27.2% aged fifty or older.

I used to be extremely excited about the new Sharp NetWalker – what’s not to love about the form factor of an electronic dictionary (A5-sized), running Linux, 10 hour battery life, high resolution touch screen, etc, etc. Well, after a play with it in the shops, the keyboard are closer to buttons than keys so have a dreadful feel, there’s a huge dead area around the screen, the touch pad is microscopic and the mouse buttons are under the left hand, 10 hours battery life is measured with minimum brightness and no sound, and the biggest killer, 45,000 yen price tag (40,000 yen if you shop around), or about 450 US dollars or 280 UK pounds. For less than that I can pick up any number of netbooks, and I’m off to the US at the end of the month so $320 for an Acer Aspire One delivered straight to my hotel room from Amazon sounds like a plan.
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Even though consumer prices have dropped 2.4% over the last year, consumer spending is flat here, so this recent survey from MyVoice into consumption attitudes in Japan is very timely. Also, today I read an interesting article on Observing Japan about amongst other things how Keynesian economics says consumption is the key to economic growth, but after ten years of uncertainty in Japan, how can the DPJ pry open people’s wallets?

Demographics

Over the first five days of September 2009 14,139 members of the MyVoice internet community completed a private online questionnaire. 54% of the sample were female, 2% in their teens, 14% in their twenties, 34% in their thirties, 30% in their forties, and 20% aged fifty or older.

I’m all too aware of cutting back and delaying spending, not helped by having a 30% cut in bonuses in the summer, which meant that there was very little money left over after paying the bonus portion of the mortgage. Our home washing machine is liable to conk out at any moment with the drum disintegrating, the buttons losing their responsiveness, and the spin cycle making funny noises, but… The rice cooker pot is also way past replacement time, and the microwave’s been a bit dodgy too… If only I had ten times as many visitors I could easily pay it all off! Anyone want to buy an advertisement on What Japan Thinks?
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