Although the traditional time for ghost stories in the West is around Halloween, in Japan it is summer as the chill ghost stories send down your spine cools you off in the summer heat, or so the theory goes. To find out what people thought about this, iShare took a look at scary stories.
Demographics
Between the 22nd and 24th of July 2009 509 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 54.4% of the sample were male, 33.8% in their twenties, 29.7% in their thirties, and 36.5% in their forties.
I am disappointed that the fundamental question “do you believe in ghosts?” was not asked. According to the survey that was the spur behind the creation of What Japan Thinks, in Q3 only 27.0% do not believe that anything supernatural exists. If you do believe they exist, please visit James Randi’s site and find out not why they don’t exist, but why no-one has been able to demonstrate in a properly-designed experiment that they do. Read the rest of this entry »
I’ve always found Japanese saying “You’re good with chopsticks” such an empty compliment as a lot of them seem pretty poor themselves, and if they ever get loose on a knife and fork it’s often a total disaster. Perhaps what they are saying is that they themselves are no good with a knife and fork, a situation that this survey from iShare seems to back up.
Demographics
Between the 15th and 21st of July 2009 574 members of the free email forwarding service CLUB BBQ completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.3% of the sample were male, 32.6% in their twenties, 31.0% in their thirties, and 36.2% in their forties.
Just thinking about it, one problem my wife has is pressing the knife down when cutting things; most Westerners (I hope! Or at least most Europeans do…) hold knives like we hold our pens, with the index finger straight out, but Japanese tend to hold pens in their fists, so perhaps the correct position is unfamiliar and uncomfortable to them.
I’d also have loved to have seen them asked if they can eat spaghetti without slurping or without holding their face a few centimetres above the place and shovelling the pasta in with both fork and spoon together. Read the rest of this entry »
After one year of the iPhone in Japan, how is it viewed? This was the question posed by iShare when they conducted a survey into the iPhone.
Demographics
Between the 7th and 10th of July 2009 568 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 53.7% of the sample were male, 35.6% in their twenties, 29.2% in their thirties, and 35.2% in their forties.
I’ve not actually touched an iPhone, although I do feel it would be nice from certain points of view, but I’m not really that big an Apple fan, and as most of my email is emoticon, emoji and decomail-ridden I don’t think that the iPhone is the best fit for me.
However, I am looking forward to Japanese manufacturers bringing out their own Android-based mobiles but… ah, I’ll stop there. Read the rest of this entry »
iShare definitely has some sort of toilet obsession, with this time taking a look at public toilet seat issues.
Demographics
Between the 8th and 13th of July 2009 568 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 57.4% of the sample were male, 35.7% in their twenties, 31.3% in their thirties, and 32.9% in their forties.
I don’t like using public toilets, but more from the point of view of not being being able to relax. I think I’ve only once used the paper sheet covers, but only just because I wanted to see what they actually were, rather than any worry about hygene. Wifey, on the other hand, prefers Western toilets and always carries seat cleaning sheets with her whenever she goes out.
Here’s one of these surveys that helps explain something that does annoy me in Japan, namely how change is handed out. The survey was conducted by iShare.
Demographics
Between the 3rd and 8th of July 2009 590 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private online questionnaire. 55.8% of the sample were male, 36.3% in their twenties, 30.2% in their thirties, and 33.6% in their forties.
Two things annoy me about getting change here; I almost always get notes first, so I end up fumbling with my wallet trying to get them in while holding up the queue and the cashier hovering over me with the coins. Second, when getting a mix of 1,000 yen and 5,000 yen notes, they always put the 5,000 yen note on top, so I either have to put the notes in back to front or spend more time fumbling to put the 5,000 yen note to the back. Do any of my readers get bothered by this, or is it just me?
For some reason that I am not quite familiar with, a recent craze in Japan is Buddhist statues, which was the subject of this survey from iShare.
Demographics
Between the 22nd and 25th of June 2009 553 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 56.1% of the sample were male, 38.9% in their twenties, 30.6% in their thirties, and 30.6% in their forties.
Following on from yesterday’s look at Neon Genesis Evangelion, lets look today with iShare again at big mech anime, or cartoons of giant robots knocking lumps out of each other for those not familiar with the technical terms.
Demographics
Between the 11th and 16th of June 2009 600 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 56.7% of the sample were male, 35.8% in their twenties, 29.5% in their thirties, and 34.7% in their forties.
I’m not sure what Atom Boy is doing in Q1SQ2, and if he is included, why not Doraemon too?
A Gundam robot in Tokyo is one of the capital’s attempts to sway the Olympic committee into picking Japan for 2016. Here’s a video of it in action:
A popular anime, so I believe, is the subject of a recent survey from iShare on Neon Genesis Evangelion.
Demographics
Betwen the 29th of June and 2nd of July 2009 544 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 53.3% of the sample were male, 37.3% were in their twenties, 28.7% in their thirties, and 34.0% in their forties.
I find it interesting in Q1 and Q2 that women seem just as interested as men in Evangelion and associated items, although I feel that the female members in CLUB BBQ surveys are often quite geeky. In Q3, the new movie, Rebuild of Evangelion, was released to cinemas on the 27th June 2009, apparently.
I must admit to being perhaps in a rather small minority of English-speaking foreigners in Japan, those who just don’t really like anime for anime’s sake. My consumption in Japan is limited to Chibi Maruko-chan and the occasional Ghibli movie, but apart from that I don’t have any urge to watch it. I did once try to sit through Akira (or was it Ghost in the Shell?) but only got about 20 minutes in. Read the rest of this entry »
Looking at the date of this survey, I don’t know why it suddenly popped up in my news feeds this week, but since I seem to have missed it the first time around, I’ll present it regardless. The survey was iShare taking a look at television advertisements that make one hungry and want to buy the food item.
Demographics
Between the 10th and 16th of February 2009 475 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service who had a mobile phone completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 55.2% of the sample were male, 10.9% in their twenties, 48.0% in their thirties, 32.8% in their forties, and 8.2% in their teens or fifty or older.
Note that the questions were not about a specific company’s product, but about any for the given category – I just selected a representative advertisement to illustrate the story. Read the rest of this entry »
The slightly mysterious title for this post introduces a short survey from iShare that looks at shoe purchase and disposal.
Demographics
Between the 18th and 23rd of June 2009 566 mobile phone-owning members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire, 53.5% of the sample were male, 37.6% in their twenties, 30.4% in their thirties, and 32.0% in their forties.
I most often buy my shoes from 歩人館, hojinkan, a national chain of shoe shops that deals only in ASICS shoes. The designs are sensible rather than trendy, but the shoes are good and solid and last a long time. Read the rest of this entry »
Although the traditional time for ghost stories in the West is around Halloween, in Japan it is summer as the chill ghost stories send down your spine cools you off in the summer heat, or so the theory goes. To find out what people thought about this, iShare took a look at scary stories.
I’ve always found Japanese saying “You’re good with chopsticks” such an empty compliment as a lot of them seem 
After one year of the iPhone in Japan, how is it viewed? This was the question posed by iShare when they conducted a survey into the 
iShare definitely has some sort of toilet obsession, with this time taking a look at 
Here’s one of these surveys that helps explain something that does annoy me in Japan, namely 
For some reason that I am not quite familiar with, a recent craze in Japan is 
A popular anime, so I believe, is the subject of a recent survey from iShare on 
The slightly mysterious title for this post introduces a short survey from iShare that looks at 
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