世論 What Japan Thinks

If you’ve recently fallen out of love, my sympathies and please stop reading now! Otherwise, enjoy with me today’s Silly Sunday with goo Ranking where we look at what people do when their hearts get broken, for both boys and men and girls and women, as the sample was restricted to the under thirties.

Demographics

Between the 11th and 15th of July 2008 1,064 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 55.9% of the sample were female, 10.3% in their teens and 89.7% in their twenties. 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’m not sure if the “do nothing” option means to fall into a catatonic state or to just shrug your shoulders and get on with life, although I would like to believe that it is the first of the two!

Photo from нσвσ on flickr. Just in case you can’t read, the kanji is “heart”.
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My favourite hobby – well, it’s not really a hobby, just an excuse to get some fresh air – is doing the garden, although it mostly consists of cutting the grass, watering the plants, and following directions on where to place everything! This survey from MyVoice looked at how the Japanese approached gardening.

Demographics

Over the first five days of August 2008 14,858 members of the MyVoice internet community successfully completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 54% of the sample were female, 1% in their teens, 16% in their twenties, 37% in their thirties, 28% in their forties, and 18% in their fifties.

I wonder if the keenness to grow vegetables is in any way connected with the recent rises in prices of many goods? From our garden we get mint and chives, mainly. We got a Brussels sprout plant but it’s still to sprout. Two years ago we planted oba/shiso and got a huge crop; with 10 leaves costing 80 to 100 yen per pack, and us going through up to 50 per week, 200 yen for a seedling from the garden centre is a wonderful bargain. We’ve got a lot of roses, but although they are lovely in the spring, they really suffer in the summer and we’re just beginning to get some new flowers through, but they’re barely a quarter of the size! Oh, and three weeks ago I had great fun relieving stress by hacking a path through two overgrown bushes.
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With the Olympics over for another four years and with Japan getting a reasonable haul of medals, Macromill performed a survey into post-Olympic views.

Demographics

Over the 25th and 26th of August 2008 516 members of the Macromill Monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. The sample was exactly 50:50 male and female in each age group; 24.8% were in their twenties, 25.2% in their thirties, 25.2% in their forties, and 24.8% in their fifties.

I didn’t watch much of the Olympics, but for me the most moving moments were Usian Bolt winning his two individual medals; celebrating the 100 metres win 10 metres before the finish line, then pulling out all the stops on the 200 metres to win by the proverbial mile.

Also, just today I read that Kosuke Kitajima, the double-double gold medal swimmer, was voted best beerist for knocking back a pint or two in celebration!
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Surprisingly high levels of data security were uncovered in this recent survey from Marsh Inc and reported by japan.internet.com into computer backups.

Demographics

Over the 18th and 19th of August 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.

I haven’t backed-up for ages and ages, although the wife pesters me to do it weekly or so. Hopefully now that we have our new PC with a DVD-R I can set up a regular schedule. Can anyone recommend good software for that? Talking of backups, I don’t do it for the blog either…

I’m surprised, however, at the numbers who do back up, and perhaps in the full survey we would find answers to questions like why did they start backing up, have they ever had to restore, and did the backups restore correctly.
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Most of the big chains of convenience stores have two kiosk-like machines in many of their stores; an ATM machine, and a general-purpose terminal for conducting various transactions. This recent survey from goo Research Inc and reported on by japan.internet.com looked at how people use convenience stores, with the report focusing on the use of these service kiosks.

Demographics

Between the 20th and 25th of August 2008 1,079 members of the goo Research monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 51.7% of the sample were male, 16.2% were in their teens, 17.5% in their twenties, 22.4% in their thirties, 17.0% in their forties, and 26.8% aged fifty or older.

Note that many Japanese net shopping sites, from the tiny stores at Rakuten all the way up to Amazon, allow payment at convenience stores. My wife has a Ticket Pia card, and even when booking through their own official ticket site she can get the option to pick up the tickets from a Family Mart store for no fee as an alternative to about 600 yen fee for registered post. When she picks up the tickets she can opt to pay by cash, but by inserting the card she gets priority seat choice, as they do not assign the seat when booking online (or by the phone), but instead when you pay. If you fail to turn up at the machine within three days you lose your booking. It does seem like a horribly complex and roundabout way of buying things and I wouldn’t be surprised if there is some sort of agreement between Ticket Pia and Family Mart whereby Family Mart pay Ticket Pia for sending a customer through their doors.
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This report by DIMSDRIVE Research into breakfast goes into far more detail than is healthy, I suspect! The fieldwork was conducted over three months ago, but it didn’t get published until last month. It’s also a subject that has been covered before on this blog.

Demographics

Between the 30th of April and 8th of May 2008 7,965 members of the DIMSDRIVE monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.7% of the sample were female, 1.0% in their teens, 13.4% in their twenties, 36.1% in their thirties, 29.9% in their forties, 13.4% in their fifties, and 6.2% aged sixty or older.

I eat breakfast in every day (barring horrendous oversleeping!), but my special treat once every couple or months or so is to head down to a local English-style cafe and indulge in their full English breakfast, or if I’m running a little late, an early afternoon tea.
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With Apple’s iPhone doing – well, nobody knows, as Apple will not allow SoftBank to release any data, but it’s certainly winning the PR and brand image battle. To see if any of the charm has rubbed off onto the iPod touch, JR Tokai Express Research Inc conducted a survey, the results being reported on by japan.internet.com.

Research results

On the 19th of August 2008 332 members of the JR Tokai Express Research monitor panel employed in either the public or private sectors completed an internet-based private questionnaire. 85.8% of the sample were male, 6.6% in their twenties, 33.1% in their thirties, 45.5% in their forties, 12.0% in their fifties, and 2.7% in their sixties.

Talking of the iPhone (I’ve mentioned often enough how little I am interested in portable music) I saw an article in the Australian newspaper … on the Japan iPhone market that was rather inaccurate, so I’ll take this chance to correct it. What they did get right, however, is that the iPhone will shake up the Japan market, but I don’t think it will be quite the earthquake that I first thought. It quotes someone as saying:

Gerhard Fasol, of telecoms consultancy Eurotechnology Japan, estimates they shifted between 75,000 and 125,000 units in July. At that rate, he thinks 2008 sales could total between 645,000 and 1 million.

No, it will not sell one million this year. SoftBank have already dropped the price of the plan to allow a discount for people who use less than 5 Mb of data per month, but that represents barely one page a day through the Safari web browser. WiFi is not a viable option as public access points are rare in Japan, and if one does stick to that, why not just buy an iPod touch and keep one’s proper phone for everything else? No support for emoji for instance, not just input but also display, will turn off just about every casual user.

This potential for continuously upgrading applications, without also needing to replace handsets, is the genuine innovation Apple brings to the Japanese mobile market and the most direct challenge to the existing system..

Almost all newer mobile phones have options to update their firmware and applications, although this option is rarely taken. There is maybe an argument that the iPhone’s process is more user-friendly, but when one thinks of a phone one expects it to work straight out of the factory and not have to have repeated upgrades. Of course, it’s rather difficult to download a One Seg receiver or an electronic cash chip, yet Japanese phones can easily download extra packages to support more types of electronic money.

Now, back to the iPod touch.
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Here’s a pair of surveys that were too short to be separate articles and not quite silly enough for Sundays, so I’ll just post them now as the results have a few talking points in them. As usual, goo Ranking conducted the surveys, one on what cost-saving measures people wish their employer would introduce, and what secret struggles people are engaged in at work.

Demographics

For the first survey, between the 23rd and 25th of June 2008 1,014 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 50.1% of the sample were male, 6.5% in their teens, 14.5% in their twenties, 31.0% in their thirties, 28.1% in their forties, 11.1% in their fifties, and 8.8% aged sixty or older. For the second survey, 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.

My company doesn’t pay overtime; to be precise, there is a fixed amount of overtime built into one’s salary, 18 hours per month, I think. However, if I work past 10 pm (I only ever do that when I have teleconferences from home) they pay a measely time-and-a-quarter. The telephone meetings usually last under an hour, so I would never, ever, dream of claiming the scheduled two hours.

Back to cost-saving; it would have to be business trips for my team, followed by changing the budgeting system so that the team doesn’t lose its budget if it doesn’t spend all its allocation by the end of the year, leading to a lot of pointless purchasing in the weeks leading up to then.

My secret battle is… ahh, it’s secret, as there’s a chance he reads this blog. The other one is timing using all the hot water in the kettle by lunchtime so my colleague cannot make a cup of coffee during the lunch break and disturb my peace and quiet by SLURPING ALL THE *!%$ING TIME!!1!1!111!
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A rather spicy title for a rather bland survey, I’m afraid! I could only find something borderline silly for today, a survey by goo Ranking into what people didn’t do before they were fully-fledged members of society. In Japan this normally means once someone finishes full-time education and with an additional implication of entering full-time employment.

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.

I only managed about six myself before I started working, with going abroad being one notable one I didn’t do until I was twenty-four, with a business trip to New Orleans being my first overseas experience.

5=, using a taxi ticket, is for people working past the last train home, allowing them to charge the fare to the company. 12, the formal receipt, is for claiming back expenses. Don’t be too surprised at number 8, as there are a lot of older people in the survey who finished school before computers became widespread there.
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The 15th of August this year marked the 63rd anniversary of the surrender of Japan. To find out what young people think of war, goo Research, in conjunction with the Yomiuri newspaper performed a survey on this topic.

Demographics

Between the 23rd and 25th of July 2008 534 members of the goo Research monitor panel completed an internet-based questionnaire. The sample was mixed male and female, and ages between teens and those in their thirties. More detailed information is not given

Note that this report is just an excerpt of the full survey, thus some of the results raise more questions than they answer. Why do the majority of young Japanese not see peace lasting? Do they fear external sources like North Korea and China, or internal sources like terrorism – homegrown or imported – or a renouncement of Article Nine, the part of the constitution that forbids Japan from having an offensive army?
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