世論 What Japan Thinks

Last September, DIMSDRIVE Research questioned 13,855 people, 6,102 male, by means of an internet-based survey about what their least favourite souvenir from overseas was.

The whole business of buying おみやげ, omiyage after trips, whether they be to abroad or to domestic locations, is a horrendously expensive process, often involving buying absolute tat for friends and expensive gifts for those you may respect, of feel obliged by society to respect. My wife, for instance, always has to buy her dentist (who is, in my opinion, at least mildly incompetent) some decent wine or the like; for me personally, receiving a gift is a very impersonal act, as I know from my own experience that the person offering the gift just rushed round Duty Free and picked up a handful of the closest boxes of not-too-expensive nor not-too-cheap chocolates with a picture of their holiday resort on the front to distribute as required. Postcards, on the other hand, I love writing and receiving, as the person has to make some effort to write them, but in Japan, even with the traditions of nengajou postcards for New Year, mochuu cards for deaths, chuugen cards in the summer, etc, holiday postcards are almost never sent, and in fact are very difficult to find even at the big tourist spots.

Anyway, back to the rankings.
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In mid-November of last year DIMSDRIVE Research asked 5000 members of their internet monitor group, 50.8% of them female, to tell them what kanji character best described themselves.

There is another more famous Kanji of the Year survey performed by Kiyomizu Temple and the Kanji Kentei organisation that chose 愛, ai, love as the character of the year, but that vote is for the character best representing the year in general, not people themselves. Given that “love” is a positive emotion, it is quite a contrast (and rather depressing) that almost all of the kanji chosen here represent negative feelings or thoughts.

For me personally, I’d probably choose 疲, tsukare, tired out.
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In November last year, DIMSDRIVE Research interviewed via an internet-based questionnaire 3,604 people (1,620, or 45.0% male) regarding what foreigner they thought was good at Japanese.

To most people who have never been to Japan this probably sounds like a really bizarre question to ask, but with Japan having only about 2% non-Japanese residents, and with the vast majority of these actually being born in Japan and often bred as Japanese (Google for zainichi), the number of non-native speakers of Japanese is very low, and of course Nihonjinron tells the Japanese that we gaijin cannot learn the language properly. (Actually, Japanese is relatively easy for basic speaking fluency, as most verb and noun conjugation is regular, the core vocabularly is quite small, and pronunciation is mostly straightforward. However, the intricacies of polite language and kanji (although kanji is not excessively difficult, there’s a lot of it to learn!) inhibit most people from getting to perfect mastery.) In fact, being told you are good at Japanese by a Japanese person is more often than not お世辞, oseji, flattery, bordering on the line of patronisation, which I suspect is the reason that the third-placed person is there.
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DIMSDRIVE performed internet-based research involving 5,274 people in September of last year to find out which country’s citizens would people most want to marry. It is not stated whether or not the people interviewed were single or not.

The Asia versus the West split is quite noticeable in the men, but really striking amongst the women. I previously translated statistics regarding international marriages in Japan that shows that the ideals being expressed here do not seem to be realised.

On a slight tangent, I watched the last episode of an NHK English learning program which features an English-speaking Western blonde angel that prods a clueless office worker along the path to success at her job getting a date with her transferred from New York colleague, the ideal tall, muscular, tanned, well-coiffured white executive. The angel’s job was done because the glaikit Misaki finally pulled her man.
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[part 1] [part 2]

DIMSDRIVE carried out a survey at the start of December to find people’s views regarding electronic money. They interviewed by means of an internet-based questionnaire 6,430 people from all over Japan, 2,736 (42.6%) male, all members of their monitor group.

In the second half of this survey, most of the users seem to be doing small transactions, and are attracted mainly to the speed, and as noted previously, convenience stores and railway kiosks are the most popular locations, so that suggests the main users are perhaps commuters are the regular users, darting in and out for a newspaper and an energy drink on the way to work. For those who haave not used electronic money, the main issue (other than the inability to perform transactions due to not having had the opportunity nor the hardware) seems to be education of the consumer.
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[part 1] [part 2]

DIMSDRIVE carried out a survey at the start of December to find people’s views regarding electronic money. They interviewed by means of an internet-based questionnaire 6,430 people from all over Japan, 2,736 (42.6%) male, all members of their monitor group.

The Suica system comes out tops for name recognition, but that may be because it is promoted as not just electronic money, but more importantly as a rail pass. Suica is the preferred system for issuing railway season tickets, so it gets heavily promoted in that respect, and is also often featured on in-train advertising, therefore it has very high name recognition, as can be seen here.

However, Edy scores higher as the first thing that springs to mind regarding electronic money, perhaps because the advertising for Suica is weighted towards the season ticket features, not shopping.
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DIMSDRIVE Research conducted an opinion poll amongst 6,416 members (39.9% male) of the their internet monitor group about their attitudes to outer space tourism. Having solved the food problem for the third who worry about eating in space, perhaps next the ISS engineers need to address the lack of a washlet in the inflight loo?

Q1: Do you think you want to travel into outer space? (Sample size=6,416)

Definitely want to go	33.7%
Somewhat want to go	33.8%
Don’t really want to go	15.0%
Don’t want to go at all	14.4%
Don’t know	3.1%

On average, men were 10 percentage points more likely to definitely want to go, but the older both sexes got, the less keen they were.

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DIMSDRIVE Research investigated the Japanese love of fads, this time Beaujolais Nouveau, due this coming Thursday the 17th. I think the only time I’ve ever drunk the stuff (I’m mildly allergic to something in red wine that puts me under the table after less than a glassful, and I’m not keen on the taste either) was in my favourite Soba Noodles shop that was serving free thimblefuls of last year’s left overs as an appetiser one day. However, it seems over half the Japanese interviewed want to drink Beaujolais Nouveau.

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DIMSDRIVE Research carried out a survey at the end of October regarding importation of USA beef and beef consumption in general. As a vegetarian myself, I’m naturally ambivalent as to whether people can buy USA beef or not, but as an amateur statistician and UK citizen, I think the whole fuss about BSE and vCJD was overblown, as the figures show. I recognise that at first as it was an new variant of a terrible disease the risk could not be quantified and extreme caution was required, but it seems to have turned out to be not as virulent as first feared. Also, from a Japanese point of view, I suspect that the dangers of toxins from locally-caught seafood may be responsible for more deaths than vCJD in the UK! And don’t get me started on banning blood donations from people who have spent even just one day in the UK!

They interviewed 2,535 men and 3,468 women – 6,003 in total – from their internet monitor group. They performed a similar survey in December 2003, so the trend since then will also be pointed out where significant. The age breakdown was 1.3% in their teens, 18.1% from 20 to 29, 36.3% from 30 to 39, 27.1% from 40 to 49, 12.6% from 50 to 59, and 4.6% 60 or over. Note that I assume “beef” to mean the raw cuts (perhaps precooked too?) as a food ingredient, not restaurant meals. However, given the high figures for male purchases, either many are reporting their wives’ shopping habits or are including prepared food, but since convenience stores figure very low in the statistics, I suspect that the first is true, many men must be reporting their wives’ purchases.

Q: In the last month, about how often have you bought beef? (Sample size=6,003)

	This survey October 2005	Last survey December 2003
Four or more times a week	1.3%	1.6%
Two or three times a week	12.6%	11.6%
Once a week	27.5%	31.5%
Two or three times a month	24.2%	27.9%
Once a month	13.4%	10.3%
Never	21.0%	17.1%

Q: For those who have bought beef, where do you most often purchase it? (Sample size=4,742)

Convenience store	0.4%
Supermarket	83.9%
Department store	3.0%
Butchers	6.8%
Co-operative	4.9%
Others	1.0%

Q: For those who have bought beef, what one thing do you pay most attention to when you make your purchase? (Sample size=4,742)

Price	40.2%
Place of origin	27.9%
Freshness	13.9%
Quality	7.8%
Best-before date	5.7%
Grade	2.4%
Processor (?)	0.9%
Vendor	0.4%
Other	0.8%

Q: What was the country of origin of the beef you currently purchase? (Sample size=4,742, multiple answer)

Japan	62.8%
Australia	52.5%
New Zealand	8.7%
Canada	2.4%
Brazil	0.4%
China	0.3%
Argentina	0.2%
Other	0.1%
Don’t know	10.6

Q: This year it is said that USA beef imports will restart; how do you feel about this? (Sample size=6,003)

Extremely uneasy	28.1%
A little uneasy	38.2%
Not really uneasy	24.0%
Not at all uneasy	6.0%
Don’t know	3.7%

Q: If imports of USA beef resumes, will you buy any? (Sample size=6,003)

Yes	22.5%
No	41.5%
Don’t know	36.0%

Q: For those who won’t buy USA beef, if which points were improved would you buy? (Sample size=2,490, multiple answer)

If USA tested all cattle	62.6%
If it was scientifically proven safe	42.6%
If the particularly dangerous parts were completely removed on importation	31.8%
If only cattle that hadn’t eaten bone meal feed were sold	28.5%
If the origin of beef was displayed at all points of sale	22.9%
If the age of beef was displayed at all points of sale	12.5%
Others	3.9%
Regardless of what was improved I wouldn’t buy	20.1%

DIMSDRIVE performed a survey regarding the use of massage parlours amongst 5,954 members of their internet survey group. 2,441 men and 3,513 women of all ages participated in the survey. I’ve been once for a massage myself, at Queensway which was rather nice, but because they also do reflexology, I don’t want to spend any more money supporting quackery. Note that this survey is not about that kind of massage.

Q: Have you been to a massage parlour? (N=5,954)

Yes	47.7%
No	52.3%

Studying the age breakdown, for men only those in their forties had a majority who had been; for women only a quarter of the teenagers had been, but all other age groups (bar between 50 and 59 years old, by 0.2%) a small majority had been.

Now for those 3,112 who have been, various questions were asked.

Q: How frequently do you go?

More than once a week	3.8%
Two or three times a month	8.6%
Once a month	11.0%
Once every two or three months	15.2%
Once every six months	13.3%
Once a year	6.8%
Less than that	16.2%
No particular frequency of visits	25.1%

Q: On average, how long is each visit?

Up to 15 minutes	4.9%
Up to 20 minutes	8.3%
Up to 30 minutes	30.5%
Up to 45 minutes	15.7%
Up to 60 minutes	29.4%
Longer than 60 minutes	5.3%
No particular fixed length of time	5.9%

Q: Which body part do you usually get massaged? (Multiple answer)

Shoulders	57.9%
Lumbar regions	44.6%
Spine	42.7%
Neck	42.5%
Feet	33.31%
All body	31.8%
Soles of feet	24.5%
Arms or hands	13.7%
Head	10.3%
Other	0.9%

Q: Who do you often go with? (Multiple answer)

By myself	77.7%
Family	14.6%
Friends	13.5%
Lover	3.6%
Colleagues	2.4%
Other	0.0%

Q: Where are the parlours you often go to situated? (Multiple answer)

Near home	35.2%
Near station	30.2%
Near work	15.6%
In shopping centre	14.7%
In department store	6.1%
Inside station	5.5%
Others	16.3%

Q: Around what time do you often visit? (Multiple answer)

Weekday morning	11.6%
Weekday lunchtime	13.2%
Weekday afternoon or evening	29.4%
Weekday night	22.3%
Weekend morning	8.7%
Weekend lunchtime	13.3%
Weekend afternoon or evening	24.5%
Weekend night	5.0%
Other	4.1%

Next, the styles of massage the people have had performed on various parts of the body was investigated. The highlights were British style was most popular for soles of the feet (reflexology quackery is popular), and Thai style was the most popular for the whole body.

Q: Do you have a favourite massage parlour? (Sample size=3,112)

Yes	60.2%
No	39.8%

SQ: If answered yes to previous question, how did you find that favourite parlour? (Sample size=1,240, multiple answer)

Just came across it	41.0%
Friends or family introduced it	36.6%
Word of mouth	20.8%
Free newspaper	12.0%
Internet	9.4%
Magazine	6.8%
Television	2.0%
Other	3.1%

SQ: If answered yes to previous question, why do you like it? (Sample size=1,240, multiple answer)

Good technique	58.8%
Easy access	51.9%
Responsive staff	46.0%
Reasonable price	40.2%
Clean shop	33.2%
Good service	28.4%
Takes reservations	13.8%
Private rooms	13.1%
Long or late opening hours	12.8%
Same sex masseurs	11.0%
Other	3.2%

Q: For those who have never used a massage parlour, do you want to? (Sample size=2,842)

Want to	56.6%
Don’t want to	17.1%
Don’t know	26.3%

Women, by almost half as much again than men want to visit a parlour.

Q: For those who have never used a massage parlour, if a parlour has what sort of features would you want to try to visit? (Sample size not mentioned, perhaps 2,842 * 56.6%=1,609, multiple answer)

Reasonable price	92.5%
Clean shop	76.7%
Easy access	71.3%
Same sex masseurs	38.5%
Private rooms	37.7%
Various styles of massage available	32.0%
Long or late opening hours	27.2%
Health consultations given	26.8%
Can go with friends or family	14.6%
Cafe or restaurant facilities	14.0%
Takes reservations	13.9%
Creche facilites	12.6%
Popular with locals	9.6%
Introduced by TV or magazines	8.9%
Children’s massage available	4.2%
Home visiting service	3.7%
Others	2.1%
Don’t know	0.2%