Where single Japanese professionals live
iShare recently released a detailed look at where single businesspeople live.
Demographics
Between the 13th and 17th of January 2011 1,192 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. All lived within Tokyo or two of the neighbouring prefectures Kanagawa and Saitama, and were single, in full-time employment, and with no wedding plans. 74.6% of the sample were male, 7.3% in their twenties, 55.4% in their thirties, and 37.3% in their forties.
You’ll note that despite the older age profile just around 14% have their own place and 35% live at home. This is in part due to stupidly-high property prices in the Tokyo area, and perhaps also due to property very rarely going up in price, usually depreciating as fast as the average car; it is only really the land underneath that can make money.
In Q1SQ3 Japanese code for counting rooms is used. 1R is “One Room”, the most basic studio. 1K is one room plus a kitchen, although that usually means just one burner and a sink in a corridor. 1DK adds a dining room or more usually space for a kitchen table, 1LDK adds a living room or living area. 2 and 3 indicate two or three rooms other than the L, D or K.
Most Japanese paying for virus software
Given that Microsoft started last year giving away the rather useful Microsoft Security Essentials and that this survey from goo Research and reported on by japan.internet.com into anti-virus software found that price was the biggest factor when choosing a package, one would have thought that the percentage of paid software users would have been lower.
Demographics
Between the 5th and 11th of January 2011 1,081 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 53.0% of the survey were male, 16.4% in their teens, 18.0% in their twenties, 21.5% in their thirties, 16.5% in their forties, 15.6% in their fifties, and 12.0% aged sixty or older.
One key reason for the high rate of paid software is, I suspect, heavy television advertising by at least two or three vendors raising awareness of the need to buy amongst users. However, I would admit that it is also possible that it is the high rate of payers that spurs the advertising market rather than the other way around.
As mentioned above, I now use Microsoft Security Essentials which does everything I need. I used to use Avast!, but it started nagging me in the autumn to upgrade to the paid version but didn’t seem to have any obvious way to turn off the warnings.
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Tokyo Disneyland and Sea top theme parks in Japan, Universal Studios a distant third
Here’s another rather slow set of results from DIMSDRIVE Research (although, of course I’m most grateful for making the data public) into theme parks and funfairs.
Demographics
Between the 12th and 27th of May 2010 8,164 members of the DIMSDRIVE monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 50.9% of the sample were male, 0.9% in their teens, 11.4% in their twenties, 31.6% in their thirties, 32.4% in their forties, 15.9% in their fifties, and 7.8% aged sixty or older. As a further demographic, 62.2% were married.
I personally hate roller coasters, in particular the lift part, both from the point of view of heights (I’m not terribly good with them) and the slow wind-up. The most recent one I rode was at Universal Studios Japan, which has slightly reclining seats so you are basically horizontal on the way up, and my wife (who loves them) was telling me how she found it scary when she had ridden before. Getting off these things I have terrible rubber legs but a strange feeling of relief for having survived. My worst experience was on a tea cup kind of ride (in Japan it’s called a coffee cup) which little to my knowledge beforehand tilted up to around sixty degrees, but with no seat belts, just an iron bar to brace against. At the same theme park (Expoland, now closed after a fatal accident) on another day with work colleagues one woman had to be pushed onto a kiddie-oriented haunted house-type of tunnel ride that featured not much more than a few static glow-in-the-dark bats.
Ever had a snog on a ferris wheel?
2011 (Heisei 23) New Year Postcard Nengajo lottery results
The winners of the 2011 New Year Postcard lottery for the Year of the Rabbit have been announced, and the winning numbers and prizes are as follows. The number to check is the six digit number at the bottom right of the card. Note that some cards do not actually have numbers, which means they are not eligible.
First prize: 651694
Choose any one from a 40 inch Sharp Aquos LED backlit LCD televison, a JTB holiday, either three nights in Hawaii or Hong Kong, 2 nights in Korea, or one night in one of 53 domestic hot springs resorts plus 30,000 or 50,000 yen’s worth of gift vouchers, Toshiba dynabook T350/34AW-U notebook plus Fujifilm FinePix Z80 digital camera plus Canon PIXUS MG5130 printer, Sanyo CY-SPA226 electric bicycle, or 200,000 yen’s worth of office goods from a Kokuyo catalogue.
Interestingly, compared to last year the TV has been upgraded from 32 inches to 40 inches.
Second prize: 403580, 228949, or 022471
Choose any one from a Nintendo Wii plus Wii Party, Canon XY DIGITAL 400F SL digital camera plus Green House digital photo frame GHV-DF7DW plus a 4GB SD card, Sharp Plamsa Cluster air purifier KC-Z45-W, one night at one of 93 domestic hotels, or a De’Longhi coffee maker CMB6-WH.
Third prize: last four digits 8363
Choose any one food item from 38 different ones on offer, from 264 sheets of seaweed to two bottles of mango juice.
Fourth prize: last two digits 69 or 02
Otoshidama stamp set – a fifty yen and an eighty yen stamp, pictured above.
If you have matched any of these, go to your nearest post office before the 25th of July 2010 and either collect the stamps while you wait, or apply for any of the bigger prizes. The full prize line-up can be seen here. I’ve just checked mine and I’ve won two sheets of the stamps above, the same as last year. How did you get on?
Read more on: lottery,nengajoExclusives main reason for purchasing a Nintendo DS
The seventh regular survey into consumer games machines by goo Research and reported on by japan.internet.com also revealed that Nintendo’s machines are still the most popular in Japan.
Demographics
Between the 6th and 8th of January 2011 1,093 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.8% of the sample were male, 16.5% in their teens, 18.3% in their twenties, 21.4% in their thirties, 16/3% in their forties, and 27.5% aged fifty or older.
As there’s nothing I can graph in this survey, instead here’s the first match on YouTube for Nintendo:
The survey also noted that in the US the various Nintendo DSs had sold about 47 million, and the Wii around 34 million.
I’ve not seen the Nintendo 3DS in real life, but the Sharp LYNX mobile phone uses similar technology to do its 3D, and it does work rather well, although I’m not sure how trying to use 3D in a moving train will be, although I suspect that at least I would get motion sickness from it; One Seg television is enough eye (and stomach) strain for me.
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Exam superstitions the Japanese have tried following
Come examination time, many Japanese students seem keen to follow superstitions to bring them a pass; finding out the most popular was the subject of a recent survey from goo Ranking.
Demographics
Over the 20th and 21st of December 2010 1,128 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 65.4% of the sample were female, 11.9% in their teens, 17.2% in their twenties, 30.2% in their thirties, 23.2% in their forties, 10.0% in their fifties, and 7.4% aged sixty or older. Note that the score in the results refers to the relative number of votes for each option, not a percentage of the total sample.
Come exam time and the shops are filled with sweets with good luck-related themes. Kit-Kats are a perennial favourite as their name sounds like “Definite Win”; corn snacks called Carl become U-Carl, as it sounds like “to pass an exam”; Mr Donut this year had five-sided (sounds like “to pass an exam”) doughnuts with rather corny puns, and so on.
Picture from Fluoride’s memories on flickr.
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Pushing your Japanese man to the altar
Here’s my favourite kind of goo Ranking, looking at matters of love, this time being on how to tell your man you want to marry him.
Demographics
Between the 19th and 22nd of November 2010 1,171 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 50.2% of the sample were female, 11.3% in their teens, 19.1% in their twenties, 29.0% in their thirties, 23.4% in their forties, 9.6% in their fifties, and 7.6% aged sixty or older. Note that the score in the results refers to the relative number of votes for each option, not a percentage of the total sample. Note that for this question only the women answered.
It’s my favourite sort of survey as there’s always scope for answers to stray into downright weird territory, with this being no exception, although it could have got even more creepy, I suppose. Number 3 is quite a sad answer, as many Japanese women in the entertainment industry at least set themselves targets of getting married by a specific age. Number 30 initially seems very low, but remember that 30% of women in their twenties who marry have a bun in the oven, and only 10% of babies are born out of wedlock.
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Uniqlo king of thermal undies in Japan
With all the cold weather recently, this survey from DIMSDRIVE Reseach may help you choose what kind of thermal underwear is best.
Demographics
Between the 1st and 16th of December 2010 5,915 members of the DIMSDRIVE monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 54.2% of the sample were male, 0.7% in their teens, 9.8% in their twenties, 30.2% in their thirties, 33.3% in their forties, 16.3% in their fifties, and 9.7% aged sixty or older.
When I was a kid the only thermal underwear was Damart, which still look as naff as I remember from then! Now, however, new materials such as UniQlo’s Heattech mean that clothes can be both fashionable and warm. My wife has a good number of their turtleneck tops, but all I have are two cheap-and-nasty last-generation U-neck inners. Note that this survey is only concerned with these new kinds of material.
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Animal welfare: Pet problems
The Cabinet Office Japan released the results of a survey last month into animal welfare. Note that the Act on Welfare and Management of Animals mentioned later in the survey has an official English translation, if you’re interested in that.
Demographics
Between the 2nd and 12th of September 2010 3,000 people over the age of 20 chosen at random from resident registers were approached to complete a face-to-face questionnaire. 1,939 people were available and completed the survey, a response rate of 64.6%. 54.8% of the sample were male, 9.2% in their twenties, 16.1% in their thirties, 16.5% in their forties, 17.1% in their fifties, 21.2% in their sixties, and 19.9% aged seventy or older.
I remember as a child my brother (or it could have been me…) drawing a picture of what he wanted to be when he grew up, and he chose to be in charge of the euthanasia section of the local pound.
The Act on Welfare and Management of Animals is pretty tame; the average Japanese pet shop has cages stacked two or three high giving dogs little space to stand, let alone play. They get put on display after about six weeks, so don’t get weaned properly, and there are persistant rumours that if they get past their sell-by date of around five months or so, they get sent back to the breeder for “disposal”.
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Animal welfare: Keeping pets
The Cabinet Office Japan released the results of a survey last month into animal welfare. Note that the Act on Welfare and Management of Animals mentioned later in the survey has an official English translation, if you’re interested in that.
Demographics
Between the 2nd and 12th of September 2010 3,000 people over the age of 20 chosen at random from resident registers were approached to complete a face-to-face questionnaire. 1,939 people were available and completed the survey, a response rate of 64.6%. 54.8% of the sample were male, 9.2% in their twenties, 16.1% in their thirties, 16.5% in their forties, 17.1% in their fifties, 21.2% in their sixties, and 19.9% aged seventy or older.
Comparing the answers for cats and dogs, I don’t really know why pet cats run twice the risk of getting their wedding tackle removed!
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