世論 What Japan Thinks

Despite being beaten to the punch by Japan Probe regarding a survey published by Matsushita Electrical Works (the company behind the National brand) on toilet usage, I’ll publish regardless the full details of their recent survey.

Demographics

During June 2007 1,036 married couples aged between 30 and 59 living in either the Kanto (around Tokyo) or Kansai (around Osaka) regions completed an internet-based questionnaire.

Today’s new Japanese phrase is 座りション, suwari-shon, and abbreviation of suwari-shouben, which translates as sitting pee. The usual phrase, 立小便 or 立ション, tachi-shouben or tachi-shon refers more usually to standing outside and urinating in public places. Indeed, I see far too often in Japan signs like the one above requesting the public not to do their business around this point. The red torii gate in the sign is to dissuade people by suggesting it would be sacreligious to relieve oneself on such a Shinto symbol. These anti-wee-wee wee red gates can be found in many places in Japan; coincidentally, when I went to visit Hampton Court near London, the palace of Henry the Eighth, I saw that round the banqueting hall crosses were painted around the skirting board to stop revellers relieving themselves. So, in one aspect at least, one can say that Japanese manners are still quite mediaeval!

I was going to have a poll here, but Japan Probe is ahead of me there too!
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WJT will be getting reformed round about the New Year, so there’s a few changes in the pipeline I’d like to inform my readers of, and I even have a mini poll on one proposed change.

A New Logo

I’ve recently commissioned a new logo for the site, and with the help of a few regular readers we’re choosing a new masthead for the site, which hopefully will be ready and unveiled next week. This logo will become the What Japan Thinks brand identity; I’m excited to see what will happen with the new corporate identity, and I hope you all like it. I’ll be going as far as opening a T-shirt (and other knick-knacks) online store should you feel the need for some brand shopping.

New Advertising Opportunities

Despite a recent post where I pooh-poohed WJT’s Google-slap, I have reconsidered my position and come to a completely different conclusion.

The Google-slap is perhaps 80% the spreading of fear, uncertainty and doubt, but there is also perhaps 20% that flags the penalised site as having lowered trust, so it is a penalty not just on the site itself and the pointed-to sold links, but also on the genuine editorial links. The text link market model is no longer sustainable, and there surely will be an impending price crash. Therefore, by continuing to sell links, I am not supporting the sites I like as much as I can, so I have resolved to phase out my paid-for links.

To compensate for this, and to provide new and hopefully better value-for-money options for my advertisers and perhaps even to forge new alliances, I am going to add two new graphical advertising slots to the right-hand side of the header (nofollowed to keep Google happy), using these 125 x 125 buttons that seem to be all the rage these days. I plan to write to some of my existing advertisers, but if any other readers are interested in a commercial relationship, please do not hesitate to contact me. I’m still working out the details, including sweeteners in addition to just the advertisement, but I’m looking at a price range of $1.5 to $2 CPM depending on length of contract, from one month to six months. Current traffic is around 65,000 page views per month, with 32,000 unique visitors, so a price range from $75 to $100 per month would be a ballpark figure.

Note that I am open to offers for other kinds of banners too.

A New Poll

Despite being the internet’s leading source of free market research and other polling and survey information from Japan, I’ve never actually conducted a poll amongst my users. Let me rectify this now.

With the new logo mentioned comes a decision. Up to now my logo has effectively been 世論, seron, the kanji for public opinion, but what do people think of it? Please indicate your opinion below, and add a comment if needed.

[part 1] [part 2]

Given that according to some definition of lactose intolerant, perhaps as much as 90% or more of the Japanese population are lactose intolerant, and seven years ago over 14,000 Japanese drank staphylococcus-infected milk, one might expect to find relatively few milk-drinkers in Japan. However, this recent survey from DIMSDRIVE Research into milk (and one previously on fermented milk products) suggests that the answer to Do the Japanese drink milk? is Yes indeed!

Demographics

Between the 17th and 25th of October 2007 7,517 members of the DIMSDRIVE Monitor group toop part in a private internet-based questionnaire. 54.0% of the sample was female, 1.0% in their teens, 14.7% in their twenties, 33.0% in their thirties, 30.8% in their forties, 14.6% in their fifties, and 5.9% in their sixties. In addition, 13.1% lived alone, 22.8% in a two-person household, 25.0% in a three-person household, 24.8% in a four-person household, and 14.3% in a five or more-person household. 6.2% had an oldest child aged between 0 and 1, 5.5% with an oldest child aged between 2 and 3, 5.2% with an oldest child aged between 4 and preschool, 11.6% with an oldest child in elementary school, 5.5% with an oldest child in middle school, 18.9% with an oldest child in high school or above and still living at home, and 47.1% had no children living with them.

In the summer I drink milk over cereal, but in the winter it’s usually limited to just an ingredient in stews or cakes. When buying, I want to make the decision on price alone; usually the cheapest non-house brand so I don’t appear too stingy, although the wife usually has other ideas when she comes shopping with me.
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The Kanji Kentei (Japanese kanji test) parent organisation in Tokyo, in conjunction with Kiyomizu Temple in Kyoto, has announced the results of an open public poll for the one kanji that best represents the year.

90,816 people voted by internet, postcard and by attending the temple in person, and the top kanji chosen by them was 偽, nise, gi, meaning imitation, deception, or bogus. This year has been full of such stories; it started off with fake health benefits from natto, and continued with one scandal after another, from construction companies faking earthquake resistance to beef-free beef croquettes. This leads us to the number two choice, 食, shoku, food, where in addition to the ironically-named Meat Hope beef mentioned before, trusted souvenir brands Akafuku and Shiroi Koibito amongst others got caught reusing ingredients that had passed their expiry dates. To round out the bad news, third was 嘘, uso, lies, which claimed the life of one politician this year.

These pessimistic characters are a marked contrast from the last two years; 2006 was 命, inochi, life, and 2005 was 愛, ai, love.

[part 1] [part 2]

Given that according to some definition of lactose intolerant, perhaps as much as 90% or more of the Japanese population are lactose intolerant, and seven years ago over 14,000 Japanese drank staphylococcus-infected milk, one might expect to find relatively few milk-drinkers in Japan. However, this recent survey from DIMSDRIVE Research into milk (and one previously on fermented milk products) suggests that the answer to Do the Japanese drink milk? is Yes indeed!

Demographics

Between the 17th and 25th of October 2007 7,517 members of the DIMSDRIVE Monitor group toop part in a private internet-based questionnaire. 54.0% of the sample was female, 1.0% in their teens, 14.7% in their twenties, 33.0% in their thirties, 30.8% in their forties, 14.6% in their fifties, and 5.9% in their sixties. In addition, 13.1% lived alone, 22.8% in a two-person household, 25.0% in a three-person household, 24.8% in a four-person household, and 14.3% in a five or more-person household. 6.2% had an oldest child aged between 0 and 1, 5.5% with an oldest child aged between 2 and 3, 5.2% with an oldest child aged between 4 and preschool, 11.6% with an oldest child in elementary school, 5.5% with an oldest child in middle school, 18.9% with an oldest child in high school or above and still living at home, and 47.1% had no children living with them.

Note that in Q2 the high frequency of milk consumption is contrasted with the small quantity that daily drinkers consume according to Q2SQ. This can partially be explained by the fact that milk in tea or coffee, or even as an ingredient in cakes or biscuits, count as milk consumption.

Also, the price of milk is due to increase for the first time in 30 years.
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It’s coming to the end of the year, so let’s have a vote to find out who my readers think are worthy of winning the first annual Japan Blog of the Year competition. First, I need to gather nominations. From today until Monday 17th December 2007, please either leave a comment here or email me at the usual address with up to three nominations in the following categories:

Best serious blog on Japan
Best humourous (or look at the lighter side) blog on Japan
Best culture blog on Japan
Best technology blog on Japan
Best personal blog on Japan

I’ll add all up the nominations then put it to the vote. I discover a new blog about every other week, so please share your favourites in the comments for us all to enjoy. The plan will be to select the top four or five from each category and put them to a public vote. To encourage you all to nominate yourself, I’ll try to publish reviews of as many of the nominees as possible, even if they don’t make it to the final round. Also feel free to nominate one blog in more than one category, and any language is acceptable.

Note: I reserve the right to reject nominations from sites with under 10 posts this year, adult sites (Danny Choo and Japan Sugoi are about my limit), mainly subscription sites, or other sites with objectionable content.

Someone who finds the internet scary is someone who doesn’t know what they are really doing, I believe. To findout what the average person thinks, japan.internet.com reported on a survey conducted by Cross Marketing Inc into internet scariness.

Demographics

Over the 28th and 29th of November 2007 300 members of the Cross Marketing online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. The sample was split 50:50 male and female, and 20.0% in their teens, 20.0% in their twenties, 20.0% in their thirties, 20.0% in their forties, and 20.0% in their fifties.

With decent virus software and just a little common sense, viruses can be almost completely avoided, although running things like Explorer and Outlook (a sin around 70% are guilty of) does make life a little more interesting on line… A follow-up question would have been to find out how many people had actually suffered from the dangers in Q1SQ, for instance.
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We’ve looked before in detail at handsomeness, but here is a slightly different take from goo Ranking; the top twenty ways Japanese fathers can retain that certain air of attractiveness, not only from their wives’ and children’s perspectives, but also from the point of view of female (and male too) colleagues and other associates. The fieldwork for the survey was conducted over the 24th and 25th of October 2007 amongst the members of the goo Research online monitor panel.

The subject for this one was a little difficult to translate; perhaps if there was a female version (and if there is one, I will definitely translate!) I could have used the expression “Yummy Mummy”, but here I was at a bit of a loss to come up with a suitable term. The Japanese expression was 父親でもモテる人, oyaji demo moteru hito.
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[part 1][part 2]

Here is another detailed yet interesting poll conducted on behalf of the Cabinet Office Japan on the subject of diplomacy, in particular the points of diplomacy that the Japanese goverment itself finds important, and that they hope the populace do to.

Demographics

Between the 4th and 14th of October 2007 3,000 adults from all over the country were randomly selected from the voter rolls to take part in this survey. 1,757 people, or 58.6%, were available and agreed to take part in face-to-face interviews. 52.4% were female, 9.3% in their twenties, 14.5% in their thirties, 18.3% in their forties, 22.3% in their fifties, 20.7% in their sixties, and 14.9% aged seventy or older. As an additional data point, 40.1% had never been abroad, 56.1% had been abroad for a short trip, and 3.9% had stayed in one country for more than three months.

The second half of this survey is also extremely interesting for me, and it has answers from which both supporters and detractors can extract ammunition. PKO operations see much higher levels of support than I would have suspected, which perhaps suggests why Osawa’s idea for troops on the ground in Afghanistan was not as surprising and contradictory as it first sounded.
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[part 1][part 2]

Here is another detailed yet interesting poll conducted on behalf of the Cabinet Office Japan on the subject of diplomacy, in particular the points of diplomacy that the Japanese goverment itself finds important, and that they hope the populace do to.

Demographics

Between the 4th and 14th of October 2007 3,000 adults from all over the country were randomly selected from the voter rolls to take part in this survey. 1,757 people, or 58.6%, were available and agreed to take part in face-to-face interviews. 52.4% were female, 9.3% in their twenties, 14.5% in their thirties, 18.3% in their forties, 22.3% in their fifties, 20.7% in their sixties, and 14.9% aged seventy or older. As an additional data point, 40.1% had never been abroad, 56.1% had been abroad for a short trip, and 3.9% had stayed in one country for more than three months.

This is a great survey, one of the most detailed I’ve seen for a while. It also features the first bit of blatent propaganda that I’ve seen in a Cabinet Office survey. Note in Q3 where I have mention ‘the so-called “Reparations”‘. This is actually a literal translation of the Japanese, いわゆる「過去の清算」, iwayuru “kako no seizan”, complete with quotation marks.

Q3 also shows nearly nine in ten interested in the North Korean kidnap victims, very different from my foreign friends, who are almost to a man (or a woman) sick fed up with the coverage of the issue and how Japanese petulance on this matter threatens to wreck much of the progress being made. I’d put a loony on the other side of the water armed to the back teeth with conventional and nuclear missiles much higher on my list of priorities. I also notice the lack of a question on how profits from pachinko are sometimes funnelled to the North Korean regime.
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