世論 What Japan Thinks

[Part 1][Part 2]

How do you know if your cat loves his litter tray? To try to find out in a less direct fashion than illustrated by the photograph, an unnamed market research firm on behalf of Kao’s cat goods division looked into cat toiletism. Yes, they did stick an -ism on the end!

Demographics

No details were given, bar that 3,025 people owned by cats completed a survey. They do mention, however, that there are over 7 million households with cats, and in the last five years the percentage of single human households with a cat has doubled to the current figure of 14.4% of the total, or just over a million singles with a cat.

My main reason for liking cats is that they are not clingy. I can’t stand dogs, with one of the reasons being their over-friendliness. Being able to keep themselves entertained when left on their own is a big plus too, of course. Back in Scotland I liked the pine chip poo sand and never understood why anyone would buy the Fuller’s Earth clay stuff!

Photograph by lynx81.
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Today, 22nd of February, or 2/22, can be read as “nyan, nyan, nyan”, the sound of a mewing cat, therefore it has been designated as the Day of the Cat. To celebrate, goo Ranking looked at where cats like to enter. Yes, that is a stupid question!

Demographics

Between the 22nd and 25th of January 2008 1,126 members of the goo Research monitor panel completed a private online questionnaire. 45.6% of the sample was male, 3.6% were in their teens, 15.8% in their twenties, 35.1% in their thirties, 27.3% in their forties, 11.0% in their fifties, and 7.3% 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. How many were cat owners or cat lovers was not documented.

Two of the top cat blogs are Mako and the superstar of the cat world, Hatchan, who is immortalised in not just photo books, but they also have stuffed toys of him in real-life poses, real-life size and weight. Number 11 might be unfamiliar to you, but searching Google images for 猫なべ,neko nabe, will soon educate you as to what it is all about. Alternatively, here’s a video via Japan Probe:

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With today being official Day of the Cat – 22nd of the 2nd month, pronounced, with a suitable cat accent, にゃん・にゃん・にゃん, nyan, nyan, nyan, the Japanese for “Meow, meow, meow”, let’s look at a recent goo Ranking into cats’ cute actions. The survey was conducted between the 18th and 20th of January.

I’m disappointed that purring comes in a miserable 8th, and sleeping in laps is nowhere.
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I’ve recently come across Japan Probe, an interesting blog on things Japanese that I can recommend you all pay a visit. I especially liked his translation of the top 100 favourite historical figures, which you might find surprising.

He also highlights, as does the BBC, how sleep deprevation costs Japan $30 billion per year. I don’t think that sales of these energy drinks make up for that loss! At my office, for instance, at least one person regularly falls asleep during meetings, and morning mass meetings have about 10% to 15% of the crowd nodding off in their chairs.

Next, we subscribed to Cat’s Heart, a cat care magazine which features the occassional reader survey. This month I learnt when 460 readers were surveyed, 62.6% reported their cats can open doors or drawers, etc; for vet bills, a vaccine averaged 5,222 yen amongst the 286 owners asked, and getting your kitten fixed costs 14,448 yen for boys and 21,449 yen for girls according to 190 and 180 owners.

Finally, this week Trivia no Izumi decided to look at if astrologers would tell the fortune of animals. In their usual deadpan style, they first got three identical newly-hatched chickens, gave them three different names, and took them off to get read. After the astrologer had rabbited on for a bit, the interviewer asked what happens if we rename them all to the same name. Next, three eels (I think they were eels) were borrowed from a hatchery attached to a restaurant. One reading later, all three ended up in eel pie. A tropical fish got read, then the aphid in the tank with it, which we were assured would have a long life. The fish promptly ate it. Finally, someone volunteered to read four beansprouts and went on about how one had a great future as an estate agent. The resultant statistic was that assuming their palms got crossed with sufficient silver (3,000 to 4,000 yen for 15 minutes seemed the going rate), 97 out of the 100 asked would do readings for animals.

DIMSDRIVE Research recently published the results of one of their ranking surveys, carried out in the middle of January amongst 5,782 members of their internet monitor group, 2,752 male, 3,030 female, to find out what kind of cat they’d like to keep as a pet.

This is a great excuse to publish a photo of the top-ranked and third-ranked breeds, Aria and Andy respectively, captured in a rare moment when they weren’t knocking lumps out of each other or aggravating my allergy with their hair!

The number who don’t want to keep cats is not recorded. Note that a Japanese cat most likely mean a mixed breed with a stubby tail, the most common wild and semi-wild cats you see around the streets here.
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MyVoice conducted a web-based opinion poll amongst the 12,311 members of their internet community, of whom 57% were female, to find out their opinions about keeping pets. Given that most of the pet shops I see seem to be 80% dogs and dog-related items, I’m very suprised to see that cats are scoring so highly! Perhaps it’s just that cats are easier to obtain from friends than dogs?

Q1: Do you currently keep a pet at home?

Yes	39.3%
Plan to get one in the near future	0.9%
I want to keep one sometime	18.6%
I’ve no plan to get one	41.2%

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