世論 What Japan Thinks

Although the topic of this survey from DIMSDRIVE Research Inc was fish, the most interesting figure for me was some data to allow me to estimate the number of vegetarians in Japan.

Demographics

Between the 1st and 16th of Octoer 2008 9,524 members of the DIMSDRIVE monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 50.5% of the sample were male, 1.3% in their teens, 13.7% in their twenties, 34.% in their thirties, 31.2% in their forties, 14.5% in their fifties, and 5.1% aged sixty or older.

The vegetarian numbers can be derived from first noticing that 0.7% don’t eat fish according to Q2, then 2.7% of these 0.7% say they don’t eat fish because they are vegetarians, meaning that a whole 8 people from the original 9,524, or 0.08% of the sample, which makes a mere 10,000 vegetarians in the whole of Japan! Of course, monks would inflate the figures, although note that the average local priest is not averse to even grilled beef!

Note that here fish refers to fish only, not other beasts of the sea like octopus, squid, prawns, shellfish, or indeed whale.
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With now just over two and half years until the analogue switch-off in Japan, this recent survey from goo Research and reported by japan.internet.com into digital terrestrial television broadcasts (the fourth regular survey) shows usage almost reaching the half-way mark.

Demographics

Between the 5th and 12th of December 2008 1,083 members of the goo Research monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.0% of the sample were male, 16.2% in their teens, 18.1% in their twenties, 21.0% in their thirties, 16.7% in their forties, and 28.1% aged fifty or older.

Compared with last month’s survey,　viewing rates are up 2.5% percentage points. If we subtract the 11 people who don’t have televisions, digital (excluding one seg or digital satellite and cable, etc) is now past 50% of viewers.

In Q2, the restrictions discussed are called Dubbing 10, a system that allows up to 10 copies to be made from one recording, but the copies themselves may not be recopied. All broadcasts have such a restriction by default.

For Q3, here is some background on the B-CAS Card issue.
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As promised, here is an epic tale of website death, starring yours truly as the hero who rescued this fair maiden blog from the big bad ogre BlueHost…

Once upon a time, Little Red Riding-WJT was skipping through the Information Super-Forest, guarded by the benign beast of BlueHost, plucking fragrant bouquets of mysquil for delivery via tubes to Granny Firefox’s Chromium Opera of Exploration. She made this trip trouble-free hundreds, if not thousands, of times a day, until one fateful day when BlueHost came across her in the flower beds and unceremoniously plucked her up and threw her into his second-deepest dungeon.

Shortly Sir Kenyn noticed Granny was not getting her usual deliveries, so mounting his trusty steed Skype he rushed from the far-off Orient to investigate where the maiden had gone. The ogre said she’d been dallying over the flowers for too long, in particular in the eyepiadder beds, so after the noble Knight promised he would instruct his charge to stay away from there, and indeed he would concrete over the eyepiadders just to make sure, BlueHost graciously released his captive.

Next day Little Red Riding-WJT was again skipping through the forest, plucking her eyepiadder-free mysquil bouquets when the ogre snuck up again and threw her into the deepest dungeon. Another IP-telephony metaphor later BlueHost claimed her mysquil-plucking was still excessive despite the knight’s insistance that there had been no negative plucking change. Sir Kenyn meekly agreed that he’d investigate her plucking habits, despite being convinced that the ogre has made a plucking mistake. BlueHost said he’d let her resume her plucking activities one more time, but if he caught her dilly-dallying in the mysquils again he’d have to eat her.

After a severe plucking pruning from the knight, once again she skipped forth through the enchanted forest. Just in case, Sir Kenyn requested from the ogre a survey of all the mysquil plantings in the forest, and he set about finding a new, safer forest to let Little Red Riding-WJT play in, as although BlueHost had a most polite and efficient exterior, inside lay a heart of stone.

As Sir Kenyn prepared the new forest, he discovered the survey from the ogre was riddled with traps, but consultation with the Grand Wizards of Perl brought him ever-closer to his Dr Frankenstein-like goal. However, this took his eye off the girl, so despite Little Red Riding-WJT having a quiet feast day, BlueHost unceremoniously added the fair maiden to his feast menu.

Regardless of this unfortunate development, one dark stormy night Little Red Riding-WJT and her flower beds were finally cloned! Sir Kenyn asked the ogre to tell DeNiSe, the ogre’s sidekick in charge of tube management, to ensure the requests for deliveries were redirected to the new forest, and They All Lived Happily Ever After.

Well, They All Lived Happily Until The Next Day. While everyone slept the nasty ogre had pointed the tubes back to the old barren forest, so the knight again asked DeNiSe, who swore he was still telling everyone to go to the new forest. After a prodding with the business end of a lance, the mysquil posy deliveries to Granny restarted, but then the next day and the day after that the ogre repeatedly reset the tubes back to the pluckerless woods, despite the knight’s repeated instructions to DeNiSe. Having had enough for about the tenth time that week, Sir Kenyn ran to his GoDaddy to get him to order DeNiSe around instead.

In the meantime, the Lord Protector of the tubes did sense this struggle, and in His infinite wisdom, the Almighty G did smite the innocent little girl from His lists of preferred suppliers to Granny Firefox and her friends.

And They Finally All Lived Happily Ever After.

THE END (I hope)

Welcome back to normal service from What Japan Thinks, and my apologies again for being offline for so long. We’ll start off the year with a survey connected with one of my most popular themes of 2008, a look with japan.internet.com at goo Research’s 42nd regular monthly survey on mobile upgrade needs, with a question on touch panels.

Demographics

Between the 16th and 19th of December 2008 exactly 1,000 mobile phone users from the goo Research online monitor panel completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.0% of the sample were female, 2.1% in their teens, 18.4% in their twenties, 36.6% in their thirties, 27.6% in their forties, and 15.3% aged fifty or older.

The figure of 0.3% Apple users reflects about 300,000 people given the estimate of about 100 million contracts, but given that on one hand there is a lot of multiple phone ownership and on the other iPhone users may be more likely than average to be the sort of people to participate in online surveys, it’s difficult to extrapolate from the three iPhone owners in this survey.

Note that it’s not clearly stated in the survey, but looking at the wording of the questions in Japanese, there is a possibility that the survey was conducted via mobile phone internet, so the questions may actually apply to the phone currently being used to answer the questions.
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Hi everyone, my apologies for a second time for the interruption to What Japan Thinks, thanks to a sequence of events that I’ll blog about in detail later.

In the meantime, all comments seem to have evaporated into the ether. I will try tonight to reinstate them, but they may not return…

Hopefully WJT will be self-destruct free for 2009!

Happy New Year and あけましておめでとうございます for the Year of the Ox.

PS: Let me know if you find anything funny, and if one or two of you could try a comment on this thread I would be most grateful!

Here’s one of these surveys which teaches me something new about Japan; this time it was a survey from Research Plus, reported on by japan.internet.com, into selling medical goods over the internet.

Demographics

On the 5th of December 2008 300 members of the Research Plus monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. The sample was exactly 50:50 male and female, 16.3% in their twenties, 38.0% in their thirties, 29.7% in their forties, 13.3% in their fifties, and 2.7% in their sixties.

In September of this year it was decided that from 2009 it will be possible to buy over the internet such over-the-counter medicines as anti-flatulence pills and vitamins, but as can be seen in Q2SQ, a lot of other seemingly innocent drugs are still not sellable.
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Christmas is coming, so let’s see what the Japanese are planning on doing with this survey from Macromill Inc looking at Christmas.

Demographics

Over the 2nd and 3rd of December 2008 516 members of the Macromill Monitor group resident in Tokyo and the three surrounding prefectures completed a private internet-based questionnaire. The sample was 50:50 male and female, and 25.0% were in their twenties, 25.0% in their thirties, 25.0% in their forties, and 25.0% in their fifties.

Wham! fits in well with a recent post over at Rocking in Hakata as Deas mentions that a Japanese cover of Last Christmas has been released. Indeed, I just heard the song for the first time tonight, and sadly but not surprisingly the English grates, sufficient to make me want to hear the original.

Note that in this survey Christmas is actually Christmas Eve. All the carry-on happens on that night, and come Christmas Day (just another day in the office) everything is tidied up for another year and replaced by the New Year decorations.
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goo Ranking recently asked the women of the goo Research monitor panel about when they want someone by their side, a survey that drew a lot more negative than positive images.

Demographics

Between the 21th and 24th of October 2008 1,056 members of the goo Research online monitor panel completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.5% of the sample were female, 5.0% in their teens, 13.2% in their twenties, 28.4% in their thirties, 31.5% in their forties, 13.1% in their fifties, and 8.8% 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. Since this was a female-only survey, only the 554 women answered.

7 and 9 are about the only two positive times (20 might be too), when they want someone to share the joy with; the rest are either sharing the misery or warding off loneliness!

Just to clarify about number 14, in Japan Christmas Eve is for some reason a night for couples, so hearing an Xmas number, rather than bringing out the urge to smash the radio with a hammer, reminds some women of how they don’t have a date. Number 4 is a similar manifestation of the syndrome, when the Christmas lights are ablase – another survey that I may translate this week shows that illuminations are the ideal Christmas date for women.
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What a super excuse to promote my favourite purveyor of Japanese tat (and I mean that as a compliment!) through this survey reported on by japan.internet.com and conducted by Point On Research into cellphone accessories.

Demographics

On the 11th of December 2008 exactly 1,000 cellphone-carrying members of the Point On Research monitor group (a footnote classified them as heavy users) completed a private (mobile?) internet-based questionnaire. The sample was 50:50 male and female, and 20.0% or the respondents were in their teens, 20.0% in their twenties, 20.0% in their thirties, 20.0% in their forties, and 20.0% in their fifties.

Dangling off my cellphone right now are: Monokuro Boo cubic pig screen cleaner; four-leaf clover with bells on; Miffy’s teddy bear; and Kobe Airport Hello Kitty jet, which for me is quite few. However, next week I should be getting a new one, as if I buy an advance ticket for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince it comes with a free gift of a Hogwarts scarf strap. I’ve got a million and one freebie straps and the like; I wonder if I could sell them on eBay?

Although you’ve probably missed delivery of a fukubukuro for New Year, if you’ve started thinking about Valentine’s Day, Strapya will engrave you and your loved one’s name on an acrylic strap.
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Here’s an interesting (but a fuller version would be even more interesting) survey conducted by Marsh Inc and reported on by japan.internet.com into taking work computers home.

Demographics

Between the 4th and 9th of December 2008 300 members of the Marsh monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 50.0% of the sample were male, 20.0% 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.

At my place of work we have a number of interesting rules regarding taking computers out of the office. I take mine home almost every day, and of course since it is forbidden I never ever use it to prepare my blog entries nor have I installed no end of tools to assist in creation of said entries, even though by deleting the uninstall entries from the registry they can be hidden from the licence checking software. Or so I’ve been told, I of course do not know if that is true or not.
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