世論 What Japan Thinks

With the biggest stories in Japan this week being pesticide poisoning from Chinese gyoza, which is looking like a deliberate case of tampering with the packaging line, according to an expert on NHK news tonight, this recent survey from MyVoice on the image of Chinese products is most timely, although given the figures here China’s image can hardly sink any lower.

Demographics

Over the first five days of January 2008 12,669 members of the MyVoice internet community successfully completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 54% of the sample was female, 2% in their teens, 15% in their twenties, 38% in their thirties, 29% in their forties, and 16% in their fifties.

I personally try to avoid as much Chinese foodstuffs as possible. One problem, though, especially for prepared foods, is that although the preparation might happen in Japan thus meriting a Made in Japan label, the ingredients may be imported. For instance, I have heard that some brands of instant noodles use cabbages from China. I saw a program on food safety in the Chinese domestic market, and if that is anything to base tourism decisions on, if you are going to the Beijing Olympics, you would be best advised to bring your own food and make sure your travel insurance is up to date!

On the other hand, I do a lot of shopping at the 100 yen shop, and the vast majority of their brands are made in China, but a laundry net or a calendar is hardly going to kill you! It is also pretty difficult to avoid Made in China clothes, as retailers from UniQlo to Aeon use the country as their primary source.
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This is a story I saw reported in the English press as merely a snippet of the results of Q6, that 79% of Japanese want internet filtering for children, but that one figure is perhaps one of the more dull numbers to come from this survey from the Cabinet Office Japan on ensuring internet safety.

Demographics

Between the 8th and 25th of November 2007 5,000 people were randomly selected from presumably the voter rolls to take part in the survey. Of the 5,000, 3,006 agreed to complete the survey, conducted by means of face-to-face interviews. The sample was 52.7% female, 8.8% in their twenties, 16.0% in their thirties, 16.1% in their forties, 20.2% in their fifties, 21.2% in their sixties, and 17.7% seventy or older. 26.3% of the sample had children under the age of 18. Of these 790 people, 35.3% were under school age, 45.6% of elementary school age, 28.6% of middle school age, 26.7% of high school age, and 6.5% had already graduated, quit school, or other. Of the parents with school age children, 23.9% gave mobile phones to all their children, 17.0% gave them to some, 58.6% to none, and 0.5% didn’t know.

Note that human rights abuse, slander, shopping fraud and copyright infringement are out of scope for the Internet Hotline Centre. In addition, for all you music and video thieves out there, only 20.0% of the survey think the police should be targeting them.
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[part 1][part 2][part 3]

This is a story I saw reported in the English press as merely a snippet of the results of Q6, that 79% of Japanese want internet filtering for children, but that one figure is perhaps one of the more dull numbers to come from this survey from the Cabinet Office Japan on ensuring internet safety.

Demographics

Between the 8th and 25th of November 2007 5,000 people were randomly selected from presumably the voter rolls to take part in the survey. Of the 5,000, 3,006 agreed to complete the survey, conducted by means of face-to-face interviews. The sample was 52.7% female, 8.8% in their twenties, 16.0% in their thirties, 16.1% in their forties, 20.2% in their fifties, 21.2% in their sixties, and 17.7% seventy or older. 26.3% of the sample had children under the age of 18. Of these 790 people, 35.3% were under school age, 45.6% of elementary school age, 28.6% of middle school age, 26.7% of high school age, and 6.5% had already graduated, quit school, or other. Of the parents with school age children, 23.9% gave mobile phones to all their children, 17.0% gave them to some, 58.6% to none, and 0.5% didn’t know.

Q5 and Q6 show an interesting result. First, over three in five knew nothing about filtering, but after being shown one card highlighting that 80% of crimes associated with deai-kei sites involve children, and another stating that filtering can block access to deai-kei sites, nearly four in five reach the conclusion that filtering is necessary. Q7 and Q8 repeat a similar pattern; 70% had never heard of the Internet Hotline Centre, yet 70% could conclude that it was a good thing.

That Internet Hotline Centre has some interesting information; for example, on the reporting form there is one option:

Information which is difficult to judge illegal but seems to be illegal (Example: Displaying child pornography)

Is that saying what I think it’s saying?
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[part 1][part 2][part 3]

This is a story I saw reported in the English press as merely a snippet of the results of Q6, that 79% of Japanese want internet filtering for children, but that one figure is perhaps one of the more dull numbers to come from this survey from the Cabinet Office Japan on ensuring internet safety.

Demographics

Between the 8th and 25th of November 2007 5,000 people were randomly selected from presumably the voter rolls to take part in the survey. Of the 5,000, 3,006 agreed to complete the survey, conducted by means of face-to-face interviews. The sample was 52.7% female, 8.8% in their twenties, 16.0% in their thirties, 16.1% in their forties, 20.2% in their fifties, 21.2% in their sixties, and 17.7% seventy or older. 26.3% of the sample had children under the age of 18. Of these 790 people, 35.3% were under school age, 45.6% of elementary school age, 28.6% of middle school age, 26.7% of high school age, and 6.5% had already graduated, quit school, or other. Of the parents with school age children, 23.9% gave mobile phones to all their children, 17.0% gave them to some, 58.6% to none, and 0.5% didn’t know.

In part one, Q1 notes that just over two in five are regular internet users. This may cause some of you to dismiss the results, but these non-users may very well have children or grandchildren that may encounter nasty stuff on the internet, so their opinion should not be readily dismissed. In Q2SQ, there is the very Japanese crime of “One-click fraud” – perhaps like Amazon’s One Click Shopping™, you click on a link on a dodgy site and up comes a message telling you you owe them a vast sum of money for membership fees.
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The winners of the 2008 New Year Postcard lottery for the Year of the Rat have been announced, and the winning numbers and prizes are as follows. The number to check is the six digit number at the bottom right of the card. Note that some cards do not actually have numbers…

First prize: 574578

Choose any one from a 37 inch Sharp AQUOS LCD television, a Sharp water oven, a MacBook plus iPod classic, or a foreign holiday from HIS.

Second prize: 957358, 769466, or 397940

Choose any one from an iPod nano, a Nintendo Wii, a Canon IXY DIGITAL 10 camera, a Sanyo air filter, or a Le Creuset cast iron pan.

Third prize: last four digits 9660

Choose any one from a pasta sauce set, filter coffee, Marrons Glaces (Crystallized Chestnuts), some Asakusa boiled beef, a Queen Alice beef stew set, Dalloyau French sweets, some Imperial Hotel canned soup, Yoku Moku sweets, Nadaman restaurant gift set, or Orbis Collagen beauty drink.

Fourth prize: last two digits 37 or 64

Otoshidama stamp set – a fifty yen and an eighty yen stamp, pictured above.

C Gumi Special prize: 812751 or 561101

Choose any one from cardboard furniture set, commuter bicycle set, or a garden decoration set. The “C Gumi” is apparently something to do with carbon offest New Year Postcards.

New Year Greeting Original Prize: 935473, 588104, 520056 or 700871

New Year Greeting Original Ninetendo DS Lite.

If you have matched any of these, go to your nearest post office before the 28th of July 2008 and either collect the stamps while you wait, or apply for any of the bigger prizes. The full prize line-up can be seen here. I haven’t checked my cards yet, but how did you get on?

The best way to save money before payday, or any other day of the month, is of course to read Nihon Hacks, but just in case you can’t get enough ideas from there, here is goo Ranking’s look at top ways to economise before payday.

Demographics

Between the 21st and 24th of December 2007 1,094 members of the goo Research monitor panel completed a private online questionnaire. 45.6% of the sample was male, 8.8% were in their teens, 15.6% in their twenties, 29.1% in their thirties, 26.8% in their forties, 10.7% in their fifties, and 9.0% 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 some reason, Google didn’t properly index last November’s story on tightfisted techniques, so hopefully this link will give Google a kick in the right direction! Actually, I don’t think I do any of the below – if I run out of cash I just use my credit card more…
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My main role in housework is hoovering up the rubbish (and anyone complaining about my British English will be summarily banned ) every Sunday morning, so this recent survey conducted by DIMSDRIVE Research into vacuum cleaners is right up my street.

Demographics

Between the 5th and 13th of December 2007 8,803 members of the DIMSDRIVE Monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 59.7% of the sample was female, 0.5% in their teens, 15.7% in their twenties, 37.4% in their thirties, 28.6% in their forties, 13.1% in their fifties, and 4.7% aged sixty or older. 48.9% had children (up to what age is not specified) at home, 12.8% lived by themselves, 23.3% with one other person, 24.8% with two others, 25.1% with three others, and 14.0% with four or more others. Pet ownership is interesting enough to merit a separate table!

I change the paper bag whenever the warning light comes on; our machine has a voice feature that gives a verbal alert too once the bag is seriously full. One of the reasons we chose the exact model was the accessory set which includes a brush for doing on top of beds, but my favourite feature is a button on the head that I can depress with my foot to undock it, leaving me with a smaller head for getting down the side of the fridge or round behind furniture. It also has a dust sensor, but I feel it doesn’t work properly – perhaps it is too easy for dust to build up on the sensor?

And Hello Kitty sucks!

[part 1] [part 2]

My main role in housework is hoovering up the rubbish (and anyone complaining about my British English will be summarily banned ) every Sunday morning, so this recent survey conducted by DIMSDRIVE Research into vacuum cleaners is right up my street.

Demographics

Between the 5th and 13th of December 2007 8,803 members of the DIMSDRIVE Monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 59.7% of the sample was female, 0.5% in their teens, 15.7% in their twenties, 37.4% in their thirties, 28.6% in their forties, 13.1% in their fifties, and 4.7% aged sixty or older. 48.9% had children (up to what age is not specified) at home, 12.8% lived by themselves, 23.3% with one other person, 24.8% with two others, 25.1% with three others, and 14.0% with four or more others. Pet ownership is interesting enough to merit a separate table!

I’ve read a lot about cyclones and Dysons in particular, and they are rated highly by their owners, but I have this overriding suspicion that the users are like Mac owners, smug about their premium purchase, so they are trying to justify to themselves as much as to everyone else the extra expense.

I got the impression when I was in the UK that upright cleaners were the more popular type, but as this is not What Britain Thinks, I cannot find any statistics to confirm or deny this suspicion; here in Japan the default is the canister type, as this survey reveals.
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Since I’m being slightly off-topic this evening, here’s an interesting article that was passed to me from Andy at Siberian Light about a little bit of history that perhaps not many Westerners are familiar with (it was news to me), but which holds a pivotal role in shaping both the war in the Pacific and the Eastern Front.

The battle is of Khalkhin-Gol, or the Nomonhan Incident as it is known in Japan, which took place in 1939, just a few weeks before Hitler invaded Poland, and was sparked off by an incident along a disputed portion of the border of the Japanese and Soviet puppet states, Manchuria and Mongolia, near the town of Nomonhan, close to the Khalkhin-Gol river, thus the two names for the battle.

After much skirmishing and even aerial attacks by the Japanese, Tokyo eventually issued an order to expel the invaders and reclaim the ground lost to the Mongol and Soviet forces. On July 1st 1939, Japan attacked and drove back the opposing forces, but a counter-attack by the Soviets with a force of 450 tanks soon saw off the thrust, and on July 5th the Japanese withdrew. Another assault by the Japanese was also repelled, but before the Japanese could regroup for a third try, the Soviets counter-attacked on the 20th of August with 50,000 men, 498 tanks, and 250 planes. By the 31st the Japanese were encircled, and bar a few units who managed to break out, they refused to surrender and chose instead to fight to the death, and the Soviets duly obliged, with the battle finishing on the 1nd of September 1939.

As we all know, just a day later Hitler invaded Poland.

Official statistics report just over 17,000 Japanese total casualties, compared with around 9,000 Soviets, but some historians claim that Japan lost more than 45,000 men, versus Soviet losses of 17,000 men.

How Khalkhin-Gol changed Japanese military thinking

Realising that the Soviets were tactically superior, one reason being that the Japanese forces valued samurai-like ethics (for want of a better word) on the battlefield, Japan decided to curb its desire for expansion into Soviet territory, so even when Germany invaded the Soviet Union in 1941 the Japanese chose not to open a second front, enabling the Soviets to concentrate on the threat from the West.

Thus, to satisfy its expansionist desires, the far-flung (from the European perspective) colonial outposts in South-East Asia were richer pickings. Thus, thanks to that defeat in Mongolia, perhaps Pearl Harbour became to be seen as a softer target, and the rest is, as they say, history.

If you enjoyed this short history lesson, please don’t forget to read the full story at Siberian Light.

Forgive me stealing the title of a rather famous book for this latest survey from goo Ranking, which reveals a most interesting side of the Japanese psyche, one that many Westerners (including me) find difficult to comprehend. The survey is entitled ranking of unexpected traits in skillful people, suggesting what habits people would not expect to see in successful employees.

Demographics

Between the 21st and 24th of December 2007 1,094 members of the goo Research monitor panel completed a private online questionnaire. 45.6% of the sample was male, 8.8% were in their teens, 15.6% in their twenties, 29.1% in their thirties, 26.8% in their forties, 10.7% in their fifties, and 9.0% 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 suspect those who are not familiar with Japanese working practices will no doubt be laughing at some of the answers, and those who have worked in Japan will find that these answers explain some reactions you’ve seen to your Western working style. I must admit to not knowing why number one is unexpected, but 2 to 5 and perhaps 6 are pretty much much what one would expect from many effective people in the West. I think number 10 implies either someone too young, or who doesn’t look like they were up until 3am the night before wired on coffee and ciggies, free from bags under their eyes and other signs of stress and overwork as much as one who is too concerned with preening.

I chose to use the male pronoun for a reason.
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