世論 What Japan Thinks

The stereotypical Christmas feast in Japan is a bucket of fried chicken from Colonel Claus with a strawberry sponge for afters, but what is the real situation? In particular, Christmas Eve is a holiday this year due to the Emporer’s birthday falling on a Sunday, so the day off has been moved forward a day to the 24th of December, and it is Christmas Eve that gets celebrated rather than Christmas Day. To find out what people’s plans were, Macromill Inc reported on a survey it conducted into Christmas 2007.

Demographics

Over the 5th and 6th of December 2007 516 members of Macromill’s online monitor group resident within either Tokyo or the three surrounding prefectures of Chiba, Saitama or Kanagawa successfully completed a private internet-based questionnaire. The group was split exactly 50:50 male and female, and 24.8% were in thier twenties, 25.2% in their thirties, 25.3% in their forties, and 24.8% in their fifties.

Note that when asked how people plan to spend Christmas, as noted above this refers to Christmas Eve, by chance a public holiday this year, not Christmas Day, a normal workday this and every other year.

The other Japanese Christmas tradition is for couples to go on a date, often ending up with an overnight stay at a hotel, usually a posh one.
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Who ate all the mince pies? Certainly not this poor chappie snapped outside an osteopath (or chiropracter or something) near to my place of work.

Just another day at the office in Japan, but an evening off in my blogging world.

With Christmas almost upon us; indeed in Japan it has now passed, as X’mas (note the extra apostrophe there that Japan almost always uses) Eve is the main time for parties and the rest. With this in mind, goo Ranking published a survey a few days ago on what food people would most like to eat at a Christmas party. As usual, no demographics are available, but since it’s the holiday season, I hope you can forgive me for not having them!

For me, tonight’s X’mas Eve special dinner was pizza. Hope you had a fun time too!
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[part 1] [part 2]

DIMSDRIVE Research published the results of a very timely survey on a subject I’ve been keen to learn more about, how the Japanese spend Christmas. Over a week at the end of November 4,312 people from their internet monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 45.8% of the sample was male, 63.5% were married, and 1.1% were in their teens, 17.1% in their twenties, 35.1% in their thirties, 27.0% in their forties, 14.4% in their fifties, and 5.3% aged sixty or older. The second half of the survey looks at Santa and the meaning of Christmas.

As for people who still believe in Santa, I suppose (or at least I hope) this means the number who believe in the spirit of giving and receiving, rather than in an actual fat guy coming down your chimney.

I’m surprised by the 13.2% who say it is a time to celebrate Christ’s birth (yes, yes, I know it is actually a pagan holiday that has been usurped), but whether they are answering in respect of their own beliefs or to demonstrate that they do really know that for other people it’s more than just an excuse to indulge to excess, I do not know.

It’s also interesting to note in the final table that Christian holidays, or perhaps more correctly just holidays imported from the West, are more significant than most of the traditional days. The reasons for this may be an interesting topic for future study.
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[part 1] [part 2]

DIMSDRIVE Research published the results of a very timely survey on a subject I’ve been keen to learn more about, how the Japanese spend Christmas. Over a week at the end of November 4,312 people from their internet monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 45.8% of the sample was male, 63.5% were married, and 1.1% were in their teens, 17.1% in their twenties, 35.1% in their thirties, 27.0% in their forties, 14.4% in their fifties, and 5.3% aged sixty or older. This first half of the survey looks specifically at what people will be spending money on.

Japan’s Christmas is a funny beast; gaijin blogs are awash with tales of KFC being the ultimate Xmas meal, Xmas cake being a strawberry cream sponge, Xmas Eve as a night at the love a posh hotel, and of course Christmas Day being just another day in the office. How close these popular images reflect reality will now be revealed!

Christmas back home was always a family event with almost no religious overtones, and although I naturally really enjoyed spending time with the family and I probably miss it more than anything else being in Japan, all the rest of the trappings from presents to carols was just a nuisance, so now in Japan I feel them doubly so.

Bah, humbug! Merry Stuffing Your Face Day!
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In another silly wee goo Ranking report, people chose their most entertaining Christmas-themed movie. As always, the ranking is the relative votes for each movie, and no demographic information is available. The survey was conducted towards the end of November.

For most Americans, as I understand it, Miracle on 34th Street is the Christmas movie, although I cannot say I know it at all. For me, I cannot honestly recall any particular Xmas-themed movie - a film version of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol (Scrooge below) is about the only thing that comes to mind, but even then, I can only really remember the Blackadder version. In the UK, the tradition is more Wizard of Oz in the morning, and a Bond movie after the Xmas pud and the Queen.

Some of the titles also seem to have very tenuous links to Christmas.
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Despite being a nominally Buddhist and/or Shinto nation, Japan has warmly embraced the Western secular spending spree festival we call Xmas, as well as retaining its traditional New Year shrine and/or temple visiting superstition.

MyVoice conducted a web-based opinion poll of 15,572 members of its internet community at the start of this year to see how they spent the 2004-2005 holiday season. The survey participants were 46% male, and over a third in their thirties.

Q1: How did you spend the New Year? (Multiple answer)

Spent with family	79%
Hatsumode (visit to temple)	40%
Gathered with relatives	25%
New Year greetings	23%
Went back to family home	21%
Ate out	17%
New Year sales	17%
Bought a lucky bag	13%
Went to film, theatre, concert, theme park, etc	6%
Went to play at friend’s house	6%
Domestic travel	5%
Overseas travel	1%
Other	7%
No answer	0.03%

Note that the 40% is low according to other polls, but Hatsumode does not officially finish until the 7th of January, after the end of the polling dates, and unofficially people will continue to perform what they consider to be Hatsumode until perhaps the end of January.
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