世論 What Japan Thinks

[Part 1][Part 2]

Now for part 2 of this survey conducted by an unnamed market research firm for Kao’s cat goods division into cat toiletism. Yes, they did stick an -ism on the end!

Demographics

No details were given, bar that 3,025 people owned by cats completed a survey. They do mention, however, that there are over 7 million households with cats, and in the last five years the percentage of single human households with a cat has doubled to the current figure of 14.4% of the total, or just over a million singles with a cat.

In Q8, remember that most Japanese homes are on the small size, so the choice of where to put the litter tray is rather limited.

At the moment in Japan there is a bit of a cat boom, and one of the ways it is expressed is by cat cafes, where you can have a cup of tea amongst some kitties. Indeed, I went to one recently, and once I finish uploading to flickr I’ll post a review.
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You may remember last year there was an ill-fated attempt by me to start up a blog carnival for Japan. The good news, however, is that Nick over at Long Countdown has ressurrected the idea over at the Japan Soc Community Blog.

So, the first host is Shane at The Tokyo Traveler. She’s looking for Impressions of Tokyo, so please feel free to join in. You can submit your story through the widget below. The due date is the 20th of August, so don’t delay!

[Part 1][Part 2]

How do you know if your cat loves his litter tray? To try to find out in a less direct fashion than illustrated by the photograph, an unnamed market research firm on behalf of Kao’s cat goods division looked into cat toiletism. Yes, they did stick an -ism on the end!

Demographics

No details were given, bar that 3,025 people owned by cats completed a survey. They do mention, however, that there are over 7 million households with cats, and in the last five years the percentage of single human households with a cat has doubled to the current figure of 14.4% of the total, or just over a million singles with a cat.

My main reason for liking cats is that they are not clingy. I can’t stand dogs, with one of the reasons being their over-friendliness. Being able to keep themselves entertained when left on their own is a big plus too, of course. Back in Scotland I liked the pine chip poo sand and never understood why anyone would buy the Fuller’s Earth clay stuff!

Photograph by lynx81.
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Recently, goo Research, in conjuction with All About, looked at young married women and ecology and lifestyle.

Demographics

Between the 3rd and 5th of July 2008 1,039 married women from the goo Research online monitor panel successfully completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 100% of the sample was female, of course, 33.3% in their twenties, 32.6% in their thirties, and 34.1% in their forties. 38.4% were full-time employees, 11.4% contract or dispatch staff, and 50.2% were full-time housewives. I don’t know why no part-timers or students were in the sample.

A recent story from the New York Times misrepresented the situation regarding energy consumption of heated toilets, but thinking about the situation more and seeing a couple of much more efficient European products, I realised the biggest domestic energy saving that can be made with little alteration to the average Japanese person’s lifestyle is to replace the hot water pot with some of the newer types of kettle.

I was going to post something describing the relative power consumptions, but it’s really difficult to get figures for kettles in sensible units – all I got was stuff like “If everyone boiled only the water they needed to make a cup of tea instead of filling the kettle every time, we could save enough electricity in a year to power the UK’s street lights for nearly 7 months. This is the equivalent of the electricity used by 300,000 households for a year or output of a typical power station for nearly 5 months.” If these figures weren’t incomprehensible enough, it said the above would save “enough CO2 to fill Big Ben tower more than 50,000 times.”

Just how much CO2 is 50,000 Big Ben’s worth?
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The number in the headline is quite surprisingly high, I feel, as revealed by this survey reported on by japan.internet.com and conducted by Marsh Inc into web filtering. The survey was specifically looking at service for blocking web pages with content deemed to be harmful.

Demographics

Between the 1st and 4th of August 2008 300 members of the Marsh online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. The sample was split 50:50 male and female, and 20:20:20:20:20 of people in their twenties, thirties, forties, fifties and sixty or older.

Sadly, details of why people use filtering services was not described. What it for protection from viruses, to stop their children accessing unsuitable material, or what? Without purchasing the full survey results we will never know.
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This Sunday it’s another look at gender differences, with goo Ranking reporting on what wives wish their husbands would do for them once in a while, and the reverse, what husbands wish their wives would do for them once in a while.

Demographics

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. 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, I already do 1 (well, I bake), 2, 3, 6, 7, 9 (more precisely, I help with the hanging out), 10, she says I don’t do 11 enough, the second 12, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 21, 23, she won’t trust me to do 24, 25, both 26s, 28 and 30 more than once in a while. I’d only want her to do 28, but not for a selfish reason. She doesn’t do ironing, but I’ve noticed in Japan ironing is not that popular an activity with anyone.
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Not that this has anything to do with surveys, but it gave me a laugh:

This giant Japanese emoticon has been naturally formed on the slopes of the 2,210 metres high Kumagetake mountain in Hokkaido. Mr Kikuchi, the person who first spotted it three years ago as the snows naturally melt in August, took the photo from the top of the nearby 2,291 metre high Asahidake mountain.

The full story in Japanese may be found here.

This interesting recent report from Nippon Research Council, conducted in conjunction with Gallop Korea, looked into the degree of interest in environmental issues in South Korea and Japan.

Demographics

For Japan, between the 7th and 19th of November 2007 1,200 people were selected at random, weighted by region, from a database of households, and were interviewed both face to face and had questionnaires left to fill in. 50.4% of the sample were female, and the ages were distributed between 15 and 79 years old. For South Korea, between the 12th and 26th of June 2008 1,510 people were selected at random, weighted by region, sex and age, and were interviewed face to face. 50.6% of the sample were female, and the ages of those sampled were 19 or older.

I wish I knew more about South Korea to know how best to interpret the results. For instance, in Q2 only 5% of Koreans recycling their bathwater for use by their washing machines, but is this due to showering being more popular in Korea? Similarly, in Q1SQ Koreans are much more aware of fresh water pollution. Why?
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Although other reports have shown that visitors to the home-grown competitor to YouTube, Nico-Nico Douga, stay longer and watch more per session, in terms of both visitor numbers and total viewing time, YouTube is still ahead. Therefore, this survey reported on by japan.internet.com and conducted by JR Tokai Express Research Inc looked only at YouTube.

Demographics

On the 6th of August 2008 330 members of the JR Tokai Express Research monitor group employed inb either public or private industry completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 69.7% of the sample were male, 9.7% in their twenties, 36.1% in their thirties, 41.2% in their forties, 10.6% in their fifties, and 2.4% in their sixties.

Q1 is a bit of a poor question as when you first access it defaults to the country and language setting of you browser (I think), but from a menu on top you can change both the language and the default country, so presenting a binary Japan versus USA is incorrect. I use Japan as my location and UK English as my language, so how would I answer?

Q2 is also confusing as what is entertainment? I guess that means clips from television variety programs, but it’s difficult to be sure.
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In the west, I hear that Bluetooth-based telephone number and email address exchange is the standard way. However, this recent survey conducted by goo Research and reported on by japan.internet.com into mobile phone address books showed very different habits in Japan.

Demographics

Between the 30th of July and the 3rd of August 2008 1,001 members of the goo Research monitor panel completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 53.0% of the sample were male, 11.3% in their teens, 23.5% in their twenties, 21.4% in their thirties, 16.2% in their forties, and 27.7% aged fifty or older.

The main reason for Bluetooth not being used is that it is far from standard on mobile phones. I’ve looked before at Bluetooth in Japan, but why it has never taken off is a mystery to me, although the fact that infrared was already established as a standard on Japanese phones might have something to do with it.

I rarely exchange telephone numbers with people, but when I have it is always one person calls the other that we do, mainly as people can’t remember where to find the infrared menu options! For Q1, my mobile phone number is 090-xxxx-8128, but I haven’t a clue what the four digits in the middle are.
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