世論 What Japan Thinks

I know yesterday was Silly Sunday, but I’ve had this survey sitting on my hard disk for ages, so I thought I’d just get this look at why people think they can’t get promotion, conducted as usual by goo Ranking.

Demographics

Between the 25th and 28th of July 2008 1,072 members of the goo Research online monitor panel completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 50.3% of the sample were male, 5.7% in their teens, 14.4% in their twenties, 31,0% in their thirties, 28.1% in their forties, 10.5% in their fifties, and 10.4% 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.

None of the answers were “Because I spend all my time filling (or translating for that matter!) these stupid surveys”, however.

I was also rather free with my translation of answer 2.
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Ahh, goo Ranking, how I love your off-the-wall surveys and the even more off-the-wall answers. This time it was asking people where they would like to stand just once.

Demographics

Between the 24th and 26th of September 2008 1,044 members of the goo Research online monitor panel completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 50.8% of the sample were female, 5.8% in their teens, 12.7% in their twenties, 32.3% in their thirties, 27.6% in their forties, 12.3% 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.

Being serious, I’d probably choose Everest, if silly it would have to be on Totoro’s stomach too! I’m surprised the grand staircase at Takarazuka Theatre doesn’t feature on the list, however.

I borrowed the photos from various web sites, but I got the rather nice Elvis from iconka.com. Hold the mouse over the pictures to see the description.
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Previous surveys have shown that Yahoo! is the top search engine (just) and the top start page, but what else do people use there? This survey reported on japan.internet.com and conducted by another new-to-me research company, Point On, and looked at the topic of Yahoo! JAPAN service awareness.

Demographics

On the 16th of October 2008 exactly 1,000 mobile phone users completed a web-based (mobile or PC?) survey.The sample was split exactly 50:50 male and female, 20.0% 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.

The only service I use on either English or Japanese Yahoo! is their Japanese train route finding service. I have once or twice in the past used their greeting cards, but I found that service dissatisfying.

Note that I’ve linked through to all the services mentioned, in Japanese of course.
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With the recent news about a ring tunes site being busted for offering illegal downloads, a site that apparently almost all middle and high-school children know, this survey from the Cabinet Office Japan looking into intellectual property is well-timed. Suspiciously well-timed.

Demographics

3,000 members of the public were randomly selected from resident registers, and face-to-face interviews took place between the 11th and 21st of September 2008. 1,770 people, or 59.0%, were available and agreed to be interviewed. The demographic information has not been made public yet, but as these Cabinet Office surveys are usually face-to-face interviews they tend to catch an older demographic, as can be seen in Q4 where over half the sample never or almost never access the internet.

This is quite a relevant survey in other ways too as I read just today an article on Global Voices Online about new copyright protection laws being proposed in Japan, where I read much to my surprise that it is not actually illegal to download copyright-infringing material, even if one is aware that the contents are not correctly licensed!

There is also no attempt to differentiate between legal and illegal free contents, just anything privately shared must be bad.
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I think it might just be Scottish slang, but “I could fair murder a curry/Chinese/Mick Jagger” indicates a not inconsiderable desire to consume said item, and of course the second slang meaning fairly describes how people feel on first tasting Japanese curry. This survey from DIMSDRIVE Research looked at how the Japanese consume curry rice.

Demographics

Between the 23rd of July and the 7th of August 2008 9,921 members of the DIMSDRIVE monitor group completed a private online questionnaire. 52.7% of the sample were female, 1.3% in their teens, 13.7% in their twenties, 34.0% in their thirties, 29.6% in their forties, 15.1% in their fifties, and 6.3% aged sixty or older. In addition, 14.0% lived alone, 64.1% were married, and 51.9% had children.

The name “curry rice” helps differentiate from “proper” curry; this Japanese invention, served at countless restaurants up and down the country, is usually half a plate of standard Japanese short-grain sticky white rice and half a plate of spicy stew. At home the stew is usually prepared from dehydrated blocks of sauce.

My wife cooks lovely curry with lots of potatos, but what most of the prepared mixes lack is a complexity of flavour. I was over in the USA last week and had a curry at a cheap food court, but just to get long-grain Basmati rice and a complex blend of spices that had soaked through the ingredients over many hours was heaven!
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I’ve not used an instant messenger for years and years, but my excuse is being an anti-social git. Sadly, this recent survey from the new-to-me survey organisation iBridge and published by japan.internet.com into instant messengers (IM) didn’t report on why Japanese seem to be fleeing instant messaging.

Demographics

On the 3rd of October 2008 300 members of the iBridge monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 51.0% of the sample were male, 15.3% in their twenties, 40.7% in their thirties, 29.0% in their forties, 12.7% in their fifties, and 2.3% in their sixties.

By way of comparision, just over two years ago a similar survey on instant messaging in Japan found that nearly one in three were active users.
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I feel the biggest home-grown problem that will have a major effect on the Japan of the future is the combination of the ageing population and the drop in the birth rate, as some time soon Japan will seriously have to consider how they approach the lack of workers and the explosion in elderly people looking for government care. This recent survey from MyVoice looked in particular at the decrease in the birth rate aspect of the problem.

Demographics

Over the first five days of September 2008 15,495 members of the MyVoice internet community completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 54% of the sample were female, 1% in their teens, 15% in their twenties, 36% in their thirties, 29% in their forties, and 19% in their fifties. I’ve just noticed that in the free comment column they have people up to the age of 73 answering, so from now on I’ll tag the top bracket of all MyVoice panels as fifty or older, not just as fifties.
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Here comes the fortieth regular cellphone upgrade needs survey by goo Research and reported on by japan.internet.com.

Demographics

Between the 6th and 10th of October 2008 exactly 1,000 cellphone users from the goo Research monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 50.4% of the sample were male, 2.1% in their teens, 18.5% in their twenties, 34.1% in their thirties, 26.8% in their forties, and 18.5% aged fifty or older.

In Q4 one might be surprised by seeing that just 7.6% of people rate Flash support as important, but I wonder how much of this is due to lack of awareness rather than lack of interest? The newest docomo phones now have decome-anime (decoration mail animation), which is basically simple Flash authoring, inserting your own message into an animation, similar to features currently only available through online greeting cards.
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That’s the question posed by goo Ranking for this Sunday’s silly survey, a look at what Japanese men would want to do once if they were female. Actually, although the above survey title is a relatively literal translation, a better one would be something like what would men like to experience once as a woman.

Demographics

Between the 24th and 26th of September 2008 1,044 members of the goo Research online monitor panel completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 50.8% of the sample were female, although in this case it was of course the other 49.4% males only who answered, 5.8% in their teens, 12.7% in their twenties, 32.3% in their thirties, 27.6% in their forties, 12.3% 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.

Answer 18 is a cracker! Here, foreigner most likely implies westerners, I strongly suspect.

I’m sure not being female doesn’t stop people doing 4, 5, 9, 14, and 15, of course. Interestingly, none of the men here seem to be wanting to seek the answers for mysterious female behaviour.

Sadly, the matching female question has not been posted yet, but I’ll be sure to publish it once it does.
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Recently the Cabinet Office Japan sponsored a very detailed survey into the public’s perception of public transport safety.

Demographics

3,000 people over the age of twenty were randomly selected from resident lists from all over the country. Between the 24th of July and 3rd of August 2008 face-to-face interviews took place. 39.3% refused or were not resident at that address, etc, so in total 1,822 people completed the survey. 53.9% of the sample were female, 8.1% in their twenties, 14.6% in their thirties, 17.5% in their forties, 20.8% in their fifties, 21.5% in their sixties, 13.0% in their seventies, and 4.4% aged eighty or older.

In Q8 I find the actions classified as “unsafe behaviour” quite surprising. Dashing into closing train doors and getting stuck in the door is dangerous, but checking in at the last minute is hardly unsafe, just impolite at worse.

Talking of unsafe behaviour, I flew trans-Pacific with NorthWest a couple of days ago in an exit seat with two of the crew opposite, but one of them grabbed her mobile and started checking her email during the final approach! They then went as far as to tut quietly at a passenger whose mobile rung as the plane taxied.
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