世論 What Japan Thinks

Thanks to an interesting post on establishing your brand on Facebook by Robert Sanzalone at blognation Japan, I stuck a stake in the ground for this blog. Please visit the 世論 What Japan Thinks Facebook page and feel free to befriend me or whatever, and if you like the idea, say thanks to Robert by visiting the blognation Japan Facebook page too. If you’re not a member, you’ll not see much more than a URL, however!

I also learnt from him about the impending Web 2.0 conference in Tokyo from tomorrow, and a booze-up/launch party in a Tokyo pub on Friday. Sadly, the WJT travel budget doesn’t extend as far as a shinkansen to Kanto.

In Japan I’ve been to a number of UNESCO World Heritage sites – the Hiroshima Genbaku Dome (the dome itself is a bit of a disappointment), old Kyoto and Nara, Himeji Castle and I think Koyasan, which falls into the Kii mountains heritage zone. To find out that the average Japanese person feels about these sites, MyVoice performd a survey on this topic of Japan’s World Heritage sites.

Demographics

Over the first five days of October 2007 17,163 members of the MyVoice internet community completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 54% of the sample was female, 2% in their teens, 17% in their twenties, 40% in their thirties, 25% in their forties, and 16% in their fifties.

The company that I work for every year produces a calendar with excellent photographs of World Heritage sites; back when I worked in Scotland we got a whole box of them free to distribute to business contacts and ourselves, but now in Japan we have to pay for them, but regardless, every year I try to send one back to the parents. At least they are rather cheap with the postage usually costing more than the calendar and mailing tube.

Without resorting to the web, I think I could only name three Scottish sites – Edinburgh Old and New Town, New Lanark, and I think St Kilda. Checking it out further, the fourth Scottish site is Neolithic Orkney, which I had a suspicion about. In Q2, I’ve definitely visited more than 10 World Heritage sites, although I couldn’t list them of the top of my head. By tracing my trips to Europe, though, I could name up to 20 locations where surely the majority of them must be listed! Similarly, the answer on naming 30 world sites; give me enough chances to give wrong answers and I could easily meet that figure!

Of the sites I haven’t been to, Iwami Ginzan Silver Mine is the one I’d most like to visit. I must admit, however, to having never heard of Yakushima until this survey!
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I thought this suvey might have been better with a title like “Japanese cell phone strap usage”, but in the interests of truth in advertising, the headline you see gets straight to the point of this article! japan.internet reported on a recent survey conducted by goo Research into not buying cute cell phone straps from Japan but actually just mobile phone straps.

Demographics

Between the 2nd and 5th of November 2007 1,007 members of goo Research’s online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.9% were male, 18.1% in their teens, 20.2% in their twenties, 17.1% in their thirties, 17.0% in their forties, 16.9% in their fifties, and 10.8% aged sixty or older.

My own phone features straps featuring Monokuro Boo cubic pigs, a regional comedian, Hello Kitty (of course!), Miffy, Totoro, and a teddy bear. Really, I’m not making this up just to get you to buy cute cell phone straps from Japan.

Also note that the iPhone doesn’t have a eyelet to allow you to attach kawaii Japanese mobile phone straps to it, a mistake I think they must rectify to make it a success in Japan.

In the interests of disclosure, I ought to point out that this article may contain affiliate links, not that you couldn’t have guessed based on all the links trying to sell kawaii cell phone straps from Japan.
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I just spotted this quickie survey today and it suited my mood, so following up on a survey a few weeks ago on bad habits of spouses, here’s a look at bad habits in the office, courtesy of goo Ranking. The fieldwork for this survey was conducted between the 25th and 27th of September 2007.

My top three pet hates would be sniffing and slurping (both acceptable Japanese habits) followed by just too much chat, but since most of them are going to be in the office for 12 hours per day or so, idle chit-chat shouted across the desks helps pass the time, but still it GETS ME VERY IRRITATED!

A purely hypothetical situation, of course, but if the rest of your colleagues are sitting and standing around talking in loud voices and laughing, is writing blog posts no worse than taking part in the conversation yourself?

By the way, does anyone know about any experiments with cubicles or even private offices to see how they affect Japanese productivity? However, without changing the underlying culture, I can only see separate spaces being counterproductive.
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It’s Sunday, so it must be Silly! This week’s oddity is from the masters of silly, goo Ranking, with a look at closet stinginess in men and women. The demographics for the survey are as vague as ever; all we know is that the data was collected between the 25th and 27th of September 2007.

If you want to be stingy in Japan yourself, may I heartily recommend Nihon Hacks as a great place to find money-saving tips.

In Japanese the word 節約, setsuyaku, means to economise, to save money, and has mostly good connotations. However, for this survey the word used was ケチ, kechi, which is a mostly negative term usually translated as stingy or penny-pinching.

Note that I would classify some of the actions as canny rather than stingy. Canny is using discount coupons, stingy is refusing to go near a shop unless you have said coupons. Oh, and if you find change in a vending machine, legally you must hand it in to the police.

For me personally, in the guy list I do just 4, 5, 7 and 15. My meanness is usually restricted to just not spending if at all possible!
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Well, it’s not really a competition of one against the other, but instead a cross-reference of awareness of Sudoku amongst console and computer gamers. japan.internet.com recently reported on a survey by JR Tokai Express Research Inc into sudoku.

Demographics

On the 26th of October 2007 331 members of the JR Tokai Express Research monitor group employed in either the public or private sector completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 81.0% of the sample was male, 14.2% in their twenties, 37.8% in their thirties, 34.4% in their forties, 12.1% in their fifties, and 1.5% in their sixties.

This survey doesn’t use sudoko, however, as the primary name for the puzzle; that seems to be ナンプレ, nanpure, an abbreviation of number place, or so my dictionary tells me.

If you want to get hold of some sudoku puzzles, one cheap way in Japan is to go to Daiso, the big 100 yen chain store, and pick up one or more of the eight volumes they have on sale, each with over 100 puzzles inside. The books also have below the puzzles small bits of trivia; one of my volumes has proverbs, the other four-character kanji phrases.

Oh, and today I received a prize after doing the Sudoku in my wife’s newspaper – it was just a boring old eco bag, however.
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Please feel free to select one of the two words in the headlines that fits your own personal bias. I’d love to see a Wikipedia-free Google, myself, or at least an option to exclude it from searches unless specifically asked for. However, I do know that my attitude towards Wikipedia is probably seen by many as elitist, but if you too are fed up with too much Wikipedia in your Google and you run a blog, please feel free to download my Wikipedia nofollow WordPress plugin. It works with Japanese Wikipedia too, but I’ve not noticed it being used on any Japanese sites.

The above serves as an introduction to a recent survey reported on by japan.internet.com and conducted by goo Research entitled the fourth regular survey into Wikipedia and Wiki that they carry out every month.

Demographics

Between the 30th of October and the 2nd of November 2007 1,098 members of the goo Research online monitor pool successfully completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 53.2% of the sample was male, 16.4% in their teens, 18.3% in their twenties, 21.5% in their thirties, 16.3% in their forties, and 27.5% aged fifty or older.

I found the gripes listed in Q1SQ2 rather interesting; missing from the list above is one of my biggest gripes, that being that articles get too messy and should be reworked to remove duplicated information or to consolidate information. Another big issue, the ever-present trivia section, also didn’t feature. I’m not sure why people get worried about getting a virus from Wikipedia as there’s not really any way for that to happen. I was also surprised that so few mentioned grammar as a problem.
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Just a quick heads-up about a new static page I’ve added; purchase your very own genuine Swarovski Crystal decorated USB Flash memory necklace. As usual, I do get a cut on all sales.

We now return you to your scheduled blogging.

Here’s perhaps a first for all the surveys I’ve translated over the two years or so the site’s been running; a survey not specifically concerned with an adult topic but it actually has data on adult issues rather than leaving the items to fall under the “other” catchall. This event occured in a survey conducted by MyVoice into mobile manga (comics).

Demographics

Over the first five days of October 2007 17,110 members of the MyVoice internet community completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 54% of the sample was female, 2% in their teens, 16% in their twenties, 40% in their thirties, 27% in their forties, and 15% in their fifties.

Q3 is the interesting answer! I’d love to see a more detailed by sex breakdown, especially to see who is reading the BL comics. I wonder what percentage is feamle, as my wife has a few manga that may fall into that category, but they are written and drawn by women and the characters seem very Takarazuka-esque, but then it becomes GL; indeed, is there such a category?
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This blog would not exist if it weren’t for all these online survey organisations from which I can appropriate material for presenting to you. To find out what the average Japanese thinks of these things…; well, in this case it’s not the average Japanese, it’s just those that feel motivated enough or have time to waste answering questionnaires like this. Also, Q1 indicates that almost half the sample take part in no other questionnaires and the like, so what sort of sample do we really have here? This is getting all rather complicated, so rather than trying to analyse the respondents’ motivations, let’s just look at the survey from NEPRO Japan on online voting.

Demographics

Over the 4th and 5th of October 2007 3,906 mobile phone users self-selected themselves to complete a survey through their mobile phone in exchange for the chance of winning a prize. 57% of the sample was female, 3% in their teens, 34% in their twenties, 44% in their thirties, and 19% aged forty or older.

Note that from Q2 we can learn that online voting covers a number of different ways of capturing user opinion, from obtaining demographic information when registering online to getting user ratings on Web 2.0-like word-of-mouth review sites.
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