If you’ve ever lived in the Kansai area of Japan, you’ll surely have heard of the reputation of Osaka old ladies for their distinctive characteristics such as… Well, let’s just see what comes to mind when the Japanese think of Osaka grannies in this fun survey from goo Ranking. The fieldwork was done between the 19th and 21st of June 2007 amongst people from all over Japan.
KANJANI8 (or 関ジャニ∞ to use their Japanese name) sing a song “Osaka Obachan (old lady/granny) Rock” that can be viewed here, assuming it doesn’t get pulled due to copyright violations:
In an attempt to jump onto two bandwagons at once, I couldn’t resist that headline to go with recent research from Yahoo! Japan Value Insight (ex-INFOPlant) on weight loss diets. The results presented below are just the highlights of the full report consisting of twenty-one questions, ten on diets in general, eleven on Billy’ Boot Camp in particular.
Demographics
Over the 27th and 28th of July 2007 400 members of Value Insight’s online questionnaire panel successfully completed a private questionnaire. The sample was exactly 50:50 male and female, and 25.0% in their twenties, 25.0% in their thirties, 25.0% in their forties, and 25.0% in their fifties.
The title of this article comes from comparing the awareness figures for this survey versus the awareness of another big thing in Japan, the iPhone. About seven or eight in ten have heard of the iPhone, whereas 85% have heard of Billy Blanks’ diet; indeed in the key female dieting age range from 20 to 49 over 99% of the women have at least heard his name! Read the rest of this entry »
Between the 1st and 5th of July 2007 14,119 members of the MyVoice internet community answered a private internet-based questionnaire. 57% of the sample was female, 2% in their teens, 18% in their twenties, 39% in their thirties, 27% in their forties, and 14% in their fifties.
The top-rated foodstuff, Calorie Mate, is also just about the most heavily advertised, notable for the use of Kiefer Sutherland (Jack Bauer) in “24″-like situations.
I hate my mobile phone answering service! I’ve set mine up in English, which is useful, but after I play back the message, there is a prompt saying “Press 2 to save the message.” I do that but it always gets deleted! Is the save only a session save, not a save forever? Is this just DoCoMo’s easy way of avoiding users storing too many voice mail messages? In addition, I find the handset’s built in service is worse than useless. To discover what the average Japanese person thinks, MyVoice surveyed its internet community to find out what they thought about mobile phone answering services.
Demographics
Between the 1st and 5th of July 2007 13,191 members of the MyVoice internet community answered a private internet-based questionnaire. 54% of the sample was female, 2% in their teens, 18% in their twenties, 39% in their thirties, 27% in their forties, and 14% in their fifties.
Most people seem to have some degree of satisfaction with their network-based voice mail, but perhaps this is just people thinking it’s better than just the handset voice mail? Then again, most people are also satisified with the built-in voice mail. Note that DoCoMo charge 300 yen per month for the use of the network answering machine, and the other carriers have similar charges.
After looking up a handy internet reference, it seems that the original Japanese version of this article misinterpreted what Engel’s Law really is, but don’t let that spoil the report from japan.internet.com on a survey conducted by JR Tokai Express Research Inc into family budgets and communication costs.
Demographics
On the 28th of July 2007 331 married women aged between 30 and 59 who were members of the JR Tokai Express Research monitor group successfully completed an online questionnaire. 59.8% of the sample were in their thirties, 28.4% in their forties, and 11.8% in their fifties.
There’s an interesting social point here that traditionally it is the woman who looks after the family budget, with the husband handing over his pay packet and getting a small sum of pocket money back to last him through the month, thus they chose married women as the best judges, presumably, of the family finances.
For me, communications comes to just under 20,000 yen, helped by having an extremely cheap fibre connection – under 3,000 yen, and a bundled phone deal with our cable company that works out rather cheap. Don’t ask me how much that is in relation to monthly outgoings, however!
Engel’s law states that the ratio of food costs to total budget tends to decrease as salary increases, but this survey does not report results from Q1SQ2 in relation to salaries, so one can conclude that either the more detailed survey results back this up, or they are, as suggested above, misusing the term. Read the rest of this entry »
One way of making Japan a cheaper country to live it is to make sure you participate in as many point cards and other loyalty schemes as possible, as many shops and restaurants offer some degree of discounts (often from 3% to 10% or more) if you sign up to their schemes. Of course, one drawback is that you end up with a bulging wallet and time-consuming scrambles looking for the correct card. Recently, Macromill Inc reported on a survey they conducted on this topic, point cards.
Demographics
Over the 13th and 14th of July 2007 516 members of the Macromill Monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. The sample was split exactly 50:50 male and female in each age group, and similarly there were 25.0% in their twenties, 25.0% in their thirties, 25.0% in their forties and 25.0% in their fifties.
Note that in this survey questions Q1 and Q2, point cards include stamp cards, airline mileage cards, and other loyalty point-based systems, but exclude credit card points, which are investingated in Qs 5 to 7. However, some of the newer combined credit card and railway pass cards have schemes where you get bonus points for spending money in the railway line’s department store or other group companies, so I don’t know whether these point schemes are counted or not.
With some of the big electrical chains who have point systems offering from 10% to 20% depending on purchases, it can be definitely argued that their prices are artificially higher to fund this system, and with comparison shopping it is possible to save more money. However, in Osaka the choice for me is bascially either the huge Yodobashi Camera right beside the main station or perhaps saving 5% to 10% if I head down to Den-Den Town, taking 10 minutes in the subway then 15 minutes by foot, fighting my way through the crowds, then hoping the store still has the product in stock, takes credit cards, doesn’t have a prohibitive delivery cost, etc. Read the rest of this entry »
This is probably the strangest survey I’ve translated since my one on the top folklore and superstitions. This time we look with goo Ranking at the urban legends that might just be true. As I am no expert in Japanese rumours, some of the translations may be wrong, and some of the rumours just seem rather odd, but I hope my readers can help me out. The survey was conducted between the 19th and 21st of June 2007.
I thought that fan death was interesting – this is a popular legend in Korea, but I didn’t know anyone really took it seriously in Japan. Perhaps interestingly, number 10, skin breathing, comes from the Bond film Goldfinger. Ian Fleming invented other such rumours, for example the one about Sumo wrestlers being trained to retract their testicles, and that gay people cannot whistle. Finally, I’d be shocked, quite frankly, if there wasn’t a bomb shelter underneath the Diet! Perhaps, however, the rumours go further.
Following up a lead I saw on a post on SEO Book, I downloaded a list of the top one million web sites by traffic. With a quick search for the key phrases “japan”, “nippon”, “nihon” and “tokyo” and a sort, I condensed the 600 or more hits down to the short list below of the top twenty most visited Japan-related domain names. Note that the vast majority of the sites were actually pr0n-related, so I deleted them (and one dodgy search engine spam site) and thus present the edited top twenty. The full data is from Quantcast. FAQs about the data, and an interesting search feature, can be found here. Oh, and I’m at position 225,812, just in case you’re wondering.
UPDATE: I just had a trackback from The Otaku, and I see that site should be in the table at position number four. If there’s anyone else I’ve missed, please give me shout!
UPDATE 2: I forgot Danny Choo too! In he goes at number 9, although quite frankly he barely passes my pr0n filter.
The delightful character pictured above represents the top behaviour (or should the be the bottom?) that Japanese find objectionable in drunks. Click on his sozzled visage, and for just 420 yen (US$3.50 or so) you too can take him, or one of his friends, home tonight! So, here we go with this pair of surveys from goo Research on what people end up doing when drunk and what behaviour in drunks other people find uncomfortable.
Demographics
Between the 19th and 21st of June 2007 an unspecified number of members of the goo Research online monitor group supplied their answers to the questions via a private internet-based questionnaire. As usual for goo Ranking, the top item gets 100 points, and the others get a score that corresponds to the percentage of votes in relation to the top voted item.
My biggest failing when drunk is I suppose talking in a loud voice, which seems to start even before I have any alcohol!
I found it interesting in Q1 that men flirt but women sexually harrass, according to the Japanese terms used to describe getting frisky after a couple of shandies. Read the rest of this entry »
I once met someone who got chucked out of a department store for eating whole platefoods of the sample food, but if you play by the rules in Japanese food courts you can get to try a decent amount of free food. To see what the average Japanese person gets up to, MyVoice recently surveyed its online community to see what they thought about free samples.
Demographics
Over the first five days of July 2007 12,654 members of the MyVoice internet community completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 54% of the sample was male, 2% in their teens, 18% in their twenties, 39% in their thirties, 27% in their forties, and 14% aged fifty or older.
My favourite free sample is always food, and I find Hanshin department store in Umeda, Osaka a good place to try before I have no intention of buying. Other than that, I don’t really collect much else, although wifey saves up free cosmetic samples for use on holidays, and she quite often ends up buying the food we sample.
Note that paper tissues are exempt from this survey. Oh, and talking of free samples, all of you in Japan did try to get a free cream puff, I hope! The offer is still open, just in case you missed it the first time. Read the rest of this entry »
In an attempt to jump onto two bandwagons at once, I couldn’t resist that headline to go with recent research from Yahoo! Japan Value Insight (ex-INFOPlant) on 
I hate my mobile phone answering service! I’ve set mine up in English, which is useful, but after I play back the message, there is a prompt saying “Press 2 to save the message.” I do that but it always gets deleted! Is the save only a session save, not a save forever? Is this just DoCoMo’s easy way of avoiding users storing too many voice mail messages? In addition, I find the handset’s built in service is worse than useless. To discover what the average Japanese person thinks, MyVoice surveyed its internet community to find out what they thought about 
After looking up a handy 
One way of making Japan a cheaper country to live it is to make sure you participate in as many point cards and other loyalty schemes as possible, as many shops and restaurants offer some degree of discounts (often from 3% to 10% or more) if you sign up to their schemes. Of course, one drawback is that you end up with a bulging wallet and time-consuming scrambles looking for the correct card. Recently, Macromill Inc reported on a survey they conducted on this topic, 
The delightful character pictured above represents the top behaviour (or should the be the bottom?) that Japanese find objectionable in drunks. Click on his sozzled visage, and for just 420 yen (US$3.50 or so) you too can take him, or one of his friends, home tonight! So, here we go with this pair of surveys from goo Research on 
I once met someone who got chucked out of a department store for eating whole platefoods of the sample food, but if you play by the rules in Japanese food courts you can get to try a decent amount of free food. To see what the average Japanese person gets up to, MyVoice recently surveyed its online community to see what they thought about 
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