世論 What Japan Thinks

Looking around at a number of other sites, I see that they often offer a newsletter service. Although they (and this blog too, of course) offer RSS-based subscriptions, a newsletter seems like a good way to talk more directly to my readers. What I propose to offer is first a headline service for last week’s posts, of course, but in addition I’ll also post links to other news that has caught my eye, not just Japan public opinion-related news, but also other Japan news and even the occassional international opinion poll or other news items. I will also mention site-related news and general blog-related information that may be of interest to others, and perhaps even provide sneak previews of forthcoming cunning plans.

The mailing list will be read-only and fully moderated by myself, so it should be spam-free. I’ll keep the frequency at once a week. Please feel free to view or sign up by visiting http://groups.google.com/group/what-japan-thinks-newsletter. It’s hosted at Google, so to get the most out of it you need an account with them, but the archives are in public view and available for anyone to read. Note that I can view the email addresses of the subscribers, but no regular members can, but I promise not to sell or otherwise abuse the address list.

Alternatively, just enter your email address here to subscribe:

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Over ten days in the middle of November last year the Cabinet Office Japan conducted an opinion poll regarding the matter of organ transplants. Of the 3,000 randomly selected people from all over the country, 57.6%, or 1,725 people, successfully completed the survey in face-to-face interviews. 52.9% were female, 9.8% in their twenties, 14.9% in their thirties, 16.1% in their forties, 20.8% in their fifties, 19.4% in their sixties, and 19.2% aged seventy or older.

The final section discusses the issue that perhaps generates the most discussion in the foreign community, the legal ban on under 15 year-olds donating organs. This forces many parents with terminally ill infants to seek treatment overseas, usually in the USA. Note that Q14 specifically mentions this issue, thus perhaps slightly biasing the respondent towards selecting a pro-transplant stance.

It’s interesting to note that the answers in Q16 for respecting the wishes of a child are almost identical to those for respecting the wishes of an adult.
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After a quick search around the web, I found the official Japan Organ Transplant Network homepage. Send them an email at support+at+jotnw.or.jp with your name, address and number of cards you want, and they’ll pop them into the post for you. For those of you who work in locations with a number of English-speakers around, please order a handful and pin them to a handy notice board or the like.

I’ve applied for mine. If there are any other Japan-resident bloggers (including Japanese nationals, of course!) who wish to take part, or who have already filled in a donor card, please blog about it or give me a shout with your name and web page, and I’ll add you to a roll of honour here.

Japan Blogosphere Organ Donor Roll

your name here!

Ken Y-N

[part 1] [part 2] [part 3]

Over ten days in the middle of November last year the Cabinet Office Japan conducted an opinion poll regarding the matter of organ transplants. Of the 3,000 randomly selected people from all over the country, 57.6%, or 1,725 people, successfully completed the survey in face-to-face interviews. 52.9% were female, 9.8% in their twenties, 14.9% in their thirties, 16.1% in their forties, 20.8% in their fifties, 19.4% in their sixties, and 19.2% aged seventy or older.

Here, only 7.9% of the population have donor cards, and of those who have them, two in five are still to indicate their choices on the card, making it less than one in twenty of the population from whom organs can be taken for transplant. As a comparison, in the UK 23% of the population are registered donors.

The questions on differentiating between brain death and actual heart stopping death in Q10 to Q13 are especially interesting. This suggests that the Japanese bascially see brain death the same way as cardiac death. Interestingly, the term “brain death” was not elaborated upon within this survey as it is a more severe state than persistent vegetative state which is perhaps what people associate with the term; I, for one, was unaware of the distinction.
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[part 1] [part 2] [part 3]

Over ten days in the middle of November last year the Cabinet Office Japan conducted an opinion poll regarding the matter of organ transplants. Of the 3,000 randomly selected people from all over the country, 57.6%, or 1,725 people, successfully completed the survey in face-to-face interviews. 52.9% were female, 9.8% in their twenties, 14.9% in their thirties, 16.1% in their forties, 20.8% in their fifties, 19.4% in their sixties, and 19.2% aged seventy or older.

This is another subject that generates a lot of comment from foreigners, but up until now I have never seen any hard figures on the situation. I hope my readers too can get as much out of this data as I did. I also hope my translation is accurate enough!

Since this is quite a lengthy survey, it will be published in three parts.
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Over five days at the start of January, MyVoice looked at that Japanese staple, rice. 10,245 members of their online monitor community successfully completed the survey. 54% were female, 2% in their teens, 18% in their twenties, 40% in their thirties, 26% in their forties, and 14% in their fifties.

My translation for Q3 is not very good, I fear, but I hope you get the general picture! I eat rice almost every day, and at home we use a mix of half white and half brown rice.

I was surprised in Q4 that 3.3% said they like their rice with soy sauce, as not doing it is one of the first points of etiquette drilled into foreigners, so please feel free to print out this survey to justify your bad manners next time you do so in polite company!

Follow this link for more information on Japanese rice cookers.
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A couple of weeks ago japan.internet.com published the results of goo Research’s 29th monthly survey into mobile phone upgrade needs. Over three days at the start of January exactly 1,000 members of their monitor panel (presumably all mobile phone owners) successfully completed a private internet-based survey. 53.0% of the sample was female, 2.1% in their teens, 19.7% in their twenties, 39.0% in their thirties, 25.1% in their forties, and 14.1% aged fifty or older.

Just yesterday, my wife upgraded her phone – what sold the Panasonic P703i to her even more than the pink colouring (actually, she bought the wavey blue one) was the inclusion of Lisa and Gaspard icon sets.
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I made two posts this weekend but all three seem to have disappeared!

Here we go again with them – if you saw them then saw them disappear later, please let me know! Hopefully this time they stick…

The Cabinet Office Japan recently published the results of a survey into the lay judge system to be introduced in 2009. Over ten days in the middle of December last year they selected a random sample of 3,000 people aged 20 years or older, of which 1,795, or 59.8%, chose to respond to the survey. More detailed demographic information is yet to be published.

This is another topic where I translated a survey last year. I was always disappointed that I never got selected for jury duty when I was back home.
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NEPRO JAPAN recently published the results of a survey into economising on one’s mobile phone bill. On one day in mid-December of last year they questioned 3,425 people across the three main Japanese carriers, DoCoMo’s iMode, Softbank’s Yahoo! Keitai and au and TU-KA’s EZweb, by means of a public poll available through the main menus of all three carriers’ systems. 44% of the sample were male; 3% were teenagers, 35% in their twenties, 44% in their thirties, and 18% aged forty and over.

Similar questions were asked of a similar group around the same time last year, so one can perhaps observe a trend over the past year.

I’ve actually now worked out how to read my mobile phone bill, I hope, and with all my discounts and whatever in place, it costs me around ¥4,000 per month for just a little talk time, some surfing, and free email exchange with my wife.
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