世論 What Japan Thinks

This interesting survey from iShare took a look at outcome of arguments, which revealed the rather unbelievable statistic of more women than men apologising…

Demographics

Between the 5th and 10th of March 2010 509 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 55.0% of the sample were male, 31.8% in their twenties, 32.6% in their thirties, and 35.6% in their forties.

Although Q1 and Q2 don’t directly specify who people are arguing with in private, one can assume that one’s partner is often the other combatant, although as mentioned above, the number of women self-reporting that they apologise seems rather high. However, Q2SQ balances it out with nearly twice as many men indicating that apologies don’t always calm the other side down.
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Yet another survey on illegal downloads, this time from iShare, pussy-foots around the direct question of whether people have downloaded or not, although there are some interesting answers in the survey, for some reason entitled “the morals of young people“, suggesting there were a number of other unreported questions asked.

Demographics

Between the 5th and 9th of March 2010 834 people from the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 64.1% of the sample were male, 11.4% in their teens, and 88.4% in their twenties. This is quite an unusual survey demographic for iShare.

To educate the public, there has been a site set up to educate the public on the recent change in the law. The site is called in Japanese やめよう！違法ダウンロード, yameyou! Ihou download, Stop! Illegal Download, and can be found at the rather quaint URL http://www.happy-musiccycle.jp/.

The change in the law this January has outlawed download – up to then it was only illegal to upload; downloading was fine, even through P2P software, as long as you set it to leech mode only. The site has a FAQ with the answer to a few questions, including one interesting one that says it is still legal to burn a CD and give it to your mother. I would guess that CD rental shops fall under this clause so you are still free to rent’n'rip.
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Another popular topic for foreigners in Japan to whinge about is sneezing and the reluctance to cover coughs. So, this survey from iShare on that very topic perhaps gives us some concrete data on which to base our prejudices.

Demographics

Between the 3rd and 8th of March 2010 496 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 56.0% of the sample were male, 30.6% in their twenties, 33.9% in their thirties, and 35.5% in their forties.

The old codger sneeze in the title comes from Q3 and the phrase おじさんくさい, ojisan-kusai, a smell of old men. Recently, with hay fever and whatnot, I must admit to being rather loud and with a bit of excessive follow-through on my sneezes at home, although when out I almost always sneeze into my sleeve.
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There’s a lot of interesting figures in this recent survey from iShare into what makes people cry.

Demographics

Between the 22nd and 25th of February 2010 502 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 53.0% of the sample were male, 32.7% in their twenties, 31.9% in their thirties, and 35.5% in their forties.

I was suprised that it was television that makes men cry the most, and also that few people feel that a good sob relieves lots of stress.

For me, it’s probably work that makes me cry the most…
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This recent survey from iShare into overtime turned up quite a lot of data that to me as a westerner seems unbelievable, but as a worker in a Japanese firm I find it not really that unusual.

Demographics

Between the 23rd and 26th of February 2010 451 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 56.1% of the sample were male, 31.7% in their twenties, 32.8% in their thirties, and 35.5% in their forties.

My overtime has actually increased since last year, despite work introducing measures to reduce working hours! The people targeted were those doing 60 hours a month overtime, but as the measures replaced a nominal 18 hours overtime in the monthly salary with an explicit measure, I now do 20 hours to try to make up for the loss in salary. Despite these measures people still work far too long but just lie on their timesheets, so my employer (note, not the union!) is actively trying to get people to go home earlier.
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Yet another positive noise that the Democratic Party of Japan have made since coming into power is the discussion of a smoking ban to prevent second-hand smoking, a topic that was the subject of this recent survey from iShare. Like many other of the DPJ’s proposals, however, this is a rather half-baked idea that doesn’t at the moment have any fines proposed for non-compliance, and a lack of joined-up government has seen talk of punative cigarette tax shelved.

Demographics

Between the 18th and 23rd of February 2010 411 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 53.5% of the sample were male, 28.7% in their twenties, 32.6% in their thirties, and 38.7% in their forties.

Quite frankly, I find the smoking rates hard to believe. The usual figures I hear quoted are a little over 30% of men and 10% of women, yet here we have 23% and 12%, yet 19% male quitters and an incredible 18% female quitters!

I think there’s only one restaurant that I frequent that makes no particular attempt to separate smokers; all the rest are either all non-smoking or at least make a decent attempt to keep the smokers at bay.
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Last year Kirin started with Kirin Zero, a completely alcohol-free drink that supposedly tastes like beer, and they were soon followed by all the other major brewers. To see how people drink them, iShare conducted a survey into these beer taste soft drinks.

Demographics

Between the 15th and 18th of February 2010 509 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 53.6% of the sample were male, 31.8% in their twenties, 30.8% in their thirties, and 37.3% in their forties.

I’ve drunk one can once – well, I drunk half a can and poured the rest away. It did look quite beer-like in colour and head, but the taste was just like what I imagine fizzy hops tea would be.

It gets promoted at a couple of the restaurants that I frequent, but it always seems to be priced just the same as real beer, and much higher than ordinary fizzy drinks. I’d stick with ginger beer if I was in the situation of needing to drive after a drinking party!
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As if Japanese television wasn’t mindless enough (there are good shows, but even the good shows are cheap time-fillers), nearly half of the respondents to iShare’s survey into Twitter and television thought the two make a fun mix.

Demographics

Between the 9th and 15th of February 2010 516 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 57.2% of the sample were male, 30.4% in their twenties, 33.7% in their thirties, and 35.9% in their forties.

Even worse, about two in five fancied Twittering with the people on the box. I’ve seen a couple of late-night programmes that feature the people in the studio checking emails for topics, and it’s incredibly boring just watching the top of someone’s head as they mutter at a monitor trying to summarise a message.
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I’m not really sure how the pie chart I have extracted from this survey by iShare into body complexes relates to the subject, but I thought it was interesting enough to graph.

Demographics

Between the 3rd and 8th of February 2010 497 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 56.1% of the sample were male, 31.6% in their twenties, 29.4% in their thirties, and 39.0% in their forties.

I don’t have any complexes, I don’t think, although I used to have a thing about my teeth, but that was a justified complex as they were in a terrible state, so a good few visits to the dentist fixed all that.

I’d love to have seen hair as a separate category, as I think many Japanese men are conditioned by the media to expect to have a full head of black hair well into their middle age. I’m going a bit thin on top and silver in the stubble myself, but it seems to bother my wife more than me!
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iShare took a look at looking people in the eye when talking and found over one in four don’t usually do so.

Demographics

Between the 29th of January and the 3rd of February 2010 501 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 53.9% of the sample were male, 34.7% in their twenties, 32.5% in their thirties, and 32.7% in their forties.

I decided to check how I did tonight as I was meeting a whole bunch of new foreigners at work (the company-sponsored social event really pushed the boat out with a few boxes of Mister Donut and pots of coffee. Let’s talk about doughtnuts for a while in these parentheses – there wasn’t even a single Pon De Ring or any of their new range; since they got a bulk order they must have filled up with the most boring selection possible) Ah yes, back at the party (I want to have another parenthetical digression, but I’ll resist) I did find I looked people in the eyes just about all the time when they were talking, and most of the time when I was, I hope, which was quite a bit more eye contact than I thought I did do.
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