世論 What Japan Thinks

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

The Cabinet Office of Japan (Gender Equality Bureau) recently published a survey it carried out on violence between males and females. This opinion poll was conducted by post, with 2,888 respondents, 1,578 or 54.6% female, out of 4,500 people initially randomly selected for participation.

This is a very large survey, so I will publish it in three parts.
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[part 1] [part 2] [part 3]

The Cabinet Office of Japan (Gender Equality Bureau) recently published a survey it carried out on violence between males and females. This opinion poll was conducted by post, with 2,888 respondents, 1,578 or 54.6% female, out of 4,500 people initially randomly selected for participation.

This is a very large survey, so I will publish it in three parts.

This is a survey I really don’t want to translate as the figures are rather depressing, but I shall endeavour to make as good a translation as possible as this data is an important record of one aspect of the state of Japanese society. This first part paints quite a bleak picture, especially if you consider that there might be an element of under-reporting. Looking at the raesons why people didn’t discuss their injuries, societal pressure looks quite large as a factor. Domestic violence is, I fear, not a subject that is discussed honestly and openly; in fact, the most recent time I heard about it was in relation to Kaoru Sugita last year, where she was almost boasting about getting drunk and beating up her husband.
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Here’s my first ranking survey from goo Ranking, one on last month’s most popular disease name (or disease-related) search keywords. Regular readers will be familiar with goo Research, in my opinion the highest quality research company whose output I translate, but here goo Ranking’s data comes in this case from their own search engine’s statistics, or in other cases from public web polls, so the figures should be taken with a pinch of salt. Regardless, they still provide an interesting snapshot of the typical goo user.
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[part 1] [part 2]

Following on from a previous survey that looked at toothbrush habits, this survey addresses another popular stereotype of the Japanese, the wearing of spectacles. DIMSDRIVE Research interviewed 7,851 members of their internet monitor group, 56.9% female, by means of an internet-based questionnaire. The age demographics were 1.5% teenagers, 20.8% in their twenties, 35.6% in their thirties, 25.6% in their forties, 11.7% in their fifties, and 4.8% aged sixty or older.

I found it a bit strange that many of the women voted for seemed to be more a list of sexy women who have once or twice been photographed wearing glasses rather than a list of regular wearers who suit them.

Also, Mari’s Diary recently published an entry regarding eyeglass fetishes.
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[part 1] [part 2]

Following on from a previous survey that looked at toothbrush habits, this survey addresses another popular stereotype of the Japanese, the wearing of spectacles. DIMSDRIVE Research interviewed 7,851 members of their internet monitor group, 56.9% female, by means of an internet-based questionnaire. The age demographics were 1.5% teenagers, 20.8% in their twenties, 35.6% in their thirties, 25.6% in their forties, 11.7% in their fifties, and 4.8% aged sixty or older.

If you are shopping for glasses in Japan, one thing to watch out for is the chains with fixed-price offers; quite often the frames available are rather limited, and the extras, such as less Coke bottle-like lenses or anti-glare coating soon add up. In fact, my wife got a pair of prismatic lenses with a nice imported frame from a wee private shop cheaper than I got my supposed 7,000 yen set from a big chain – once I added in the test, frames, coating, etc the price quadrupled. And of course, beware of shop owners shooing you away.
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[part 1] [part 2]

goo Research recently conducted a survey to see what people thought about eating out. 2,195 people from the goo Research monitors answered a private internet survey. 48.6% of the sample was male, 18.1% were teenagers, 17.5% were in their twenties, 19.8% in their thirties, 21.5% in their forties, 17.0% in their fifties, 4.6% in their sixties, and 1.6% seventy years old or older.

Since this second half is about discount tokens, I’ll introduce probably about the best English-language discount coupon I know, for Hakkakuan in Daimaru, Osaka. I’ve used it twice, and depending on which staff you get, you get either both of the discounts or have to choose one. Get there just before 5pm and you can get an early dinner at lunchtime prices, including all you can eat silken tofu. Some of the set menus are all vegetarian. Next, whenever you eat out make sure to get a point card from the restaurant if they have one. Many places have such a scheme, and the discounts available amount to usually 5% to 10% off.
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[part 1] [part 2]

goo Research recently conducted a survey to see what people thought about eating out. 2,195 people from the goo Research monitors answered a private internet survey. 48.6% of the sample was male, 18.1% were teenagers, 17.5% were in their twenties, 19.8% in their thirties, 21.5% in their forties, 17.0% in their fifties, 4.6% in their sixties, and 1.6% seventy years old or older.

For me, lunchtime is usually bread from a local bread shop; we have a subsidised canteen, but I have never got used to slurping, and I dislike the school lunch atmosphere of the place! I would personally define my special meals out as either work parties or, if it is with wifey, going out explicitly to eat and spending more than 2,000 yen each, which would put me in the four to five times a year bracket or so. One nice place for special meals is 梅の花, Ume no Hana, “Plum Blossom”, a posh tofu place. The one in Kobe Motomachi (and that part of Kobe has a lovely collection of old solid stone buildings, rather a rarity in Japan) has excellent views over the harbour and mountains, and the private rooms make for a wonderful date!
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Following my recent article on the Japanese view of April Fools (which, incidentally, has had rather a lot of hits mainly due to people reading the title as being about a certain Ms April fooling around in Japan), I discovered a survey reported by japan.internet.com, performed in conjuction with JR Tokai Express Research, on what people thought about April Fools. They interviewed 331 people in public or private employment by means of an internet questionnaire. The group was 81.6% male, and the participants were 15.7% in their twenties, 39.9% in their thirties, 36.9% in their forties, 6.9% in their fifties, and just 0.6% aged sixty or older.

Apparently there is an organisation called JIAFA, or the Japan Internet April Fool Association, that has, well, I haven’t read it yet, so I don’t know!

This article finished with a wee opinion bit that said that the reason for the decrease may be either just a loss of interest, or that since news spreads like wildfire on the internet, publishing even just one wee white lie may be becoming dangerous.
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japan.internet.com continued its recent series of surveys investigating people’s habits around technology, with this survey, performed in conjunction with Cross Marketing, looking at desktop setup and mass-storage devices. They interviewed by means of an internet questionnaire 300 people from all over the country. The sample was exactly 50:50 male and female, and the age grouping too was split into six equally sized samples, with the samples of teenagers (ages 18 and 19 only), twenty-somethings, thirty-somethings, and so on up to those in their sixties each containing 50 people.

One of the things I’ve noticed with my colleagues at work is that a lot of them have at least a third of their desktop covered with icons, using it as a temporary (more like semi-permanent!) holding area for mail attachments, current projects and the like, a behaviour I never really understood.

One other custom I’d like to see investigated by this series of polls is one on how people use filtering on their mailer. Again, I’ve noticed my software engineer colleagues often have a huge inbox with a massive amount of unread mail (we’re talking thousands!) then manually moving mail into target folders. Similarly, not many turn on message threading, nor do they archive their inbox, which seems to me like a massive waste of time.
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With Mother’s Day fast approaching – 14th of May this year – japan.internet.com, in conjunction with JR Tokai Express Research, performed a timely investigation of what people thought about Mother’s Day presents. They surveyed 331 public and private company employees, 81.9% male, by means of an internet questionnaire. The age breakdown was 13.3% in their twenties, 42.3% in their thirties, 37.2% in their forties, 6.9% in their fifties, and just 0.3%, or one person, aged 60 or older. Everybody in the survey had a living mother, apparently, or if not they passed a present to their spouse’s mother or some other maternal figure.

Personally, I’ve only the once ever sent my mother a present, as she doesn’t believe in all the stupid commercialisation of it. That present was in fact a prize I won in a competition in a supermarket!
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