世論 What Japan Thinks

Well, not me personally, but what Japanese themselves like to hear other people comment on, both for women and men. As usual, this was goo Ranking looking at this subject.

Demographics

Between the 23rd and 25th of June 2008 1,014 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 50.1% of the sample were male, 6.5% in their teens, 14.5% in their twenties, 31.0% in their thirties, 28.1% in their forties, 11.1% in their fifties, and 8.8% 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.

For me, it has to be intelligence and for loving my home life more than work, although I’ve never heard anyone in Japan praise me for that…
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Your second dose of silly Sunday surveys for today! This time looking at what trivial things people end up quarreling with their other half over, for both men and women.

Demographics

Between the 21st and 23th of May 2008 1,072 members of the goo Research monitor panel completed a private internet-based questionnaire. Exactly 50% of the sample were male, 5.7% in their teens, 12.9% in their twenties, 31.8% in their thirties, 27.5% in their forties, 11.3% in their fifties, and 10.8% 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.

I’m too laid-back to start arguments (or too scared to try…), but from the woman’s perspective number one is probably the worst one for setting the wife off, and I know better than to get involved in arguments about number ten!
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You may remember last month I published a survey on what makes Japanese women run a mile, so now it’s time to look with goo Ranking at what female actions make men run a mile at drinking parties.

Demographics

Between the 21st and 24th of December 2007 1,094 members of the goo Research monitor panel completed a private online questionnaire. 45.6% of the sample was male, 8.8% were in their teens, 15.6% in their twenties, 29.1% in their thirties, 26.8% in their forties, 10.7% in their fifties, and 9.0% aged sixty or older. Obviously only the male 45.6%, or 499 people, answered this particular question. Note that the score in the results refers to the relative number of votes for each option, not a percentage of the total sample.

The most obvious difference between this and the previous survey is groping! It was the top hate for women, but the bottom one for men. Another notable exception from the men’s list is the number 7 from the women’s list, pestering someone for their phone number! My top two would have to be smoking and poor table manners.
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From today, normal service will be resumed at 世論 What Japan Thinks after the New Year holidays. So, without further ado, let’s look at the first Silly Sunday survey of the New Year; here goo Ranking looked at break-up reasons people just couldn’t get their heads around, covering both what men hear from their girlfriends and what women heard from their boyfriends.

Demographics

Over the 21st and 22nd of November 2007 1,101 members of the goo Research monitor panel completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 50.7% of the sample was female, 6.2% in their teens, 15.4% in their twenties, 30.2% in their thirties, 27.1% in their forties, 11.0% in their fifties, and 10.3% aged sixty or older. Note that the score reported is the relative number of votes each choice got, not the percentage of the sample that chose each option.

I’ll not relate any personal stories here, but I did once fix up a mate with a friend of my wife’s (thankfully she doesn’t speak English so she won’t be reading this blog!) but he suddenly chickened out, so we had to tell her that he had been transferred, which always struck me as a hopelessly transparent excuse
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We’ve looked before in detail at handsomeness, but here is a slightly different take from goo Ranking; the top twenty ways Japanese fathers can retain that certain air of attractiveness, not only from their wives’ and children’s perspectives, but also from the point of view of female (and male too) colleagues and other associates. The fieldwork for the survey was conducted over the 24th and 25th of October 2007 amongst the members of the goo Research online monitor panel.

The subject for this one was a little difficult to translate; perhaps if there was a female version (and if there is one, I will definitely translate!) I could have used the expression “Yummy Mummy”, but here I was at a bit of a loss to come up with a suitable term. The Japanese expression was 父親でもモテる人, oyaji demo moteru hito.
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With the 忘年会, bounenkai, end-of-year party season upon us and many of us perhaps having headed to our first one tonight flush with our winter bonuses, let’s take a quick look with goo Ranking at what male actions make women run a mile at drinking parties. The fieldwork for the survey was conducted over the 24th and 25th of October 2007 amongst female members of the goo Research monitor group. Note that the vast majority of activities here would result in the guy being slapped with a sexual harrassment suit in the West, and probably also in Japan, although the law is not as frequently invoked here.

Number 8 is perhaps a bit strange and culturally specific, and although thankfully I’ve not witnessed it myself, apparently after a quantity of alcohol Japanese men sometimes do remove their shirts or more. May these be the only undies you whip off for a young lady in the pub!

Anyway, I hope none of my readers got up to or suffered from the activities described within! You may want to cross-reference with previous survey on drunken old git behaviour.
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Here’s this week’s Silly Sunday survey. This time it was goo Ranking looking at aspects of expressing interest, or detecting if interest was being expressed. There was what men think is the most effective way to go for the kill and what women think is the most effective way to go for the kill; then what women’s actions men think indicates they may have a chance and what men’s actions women think indicates they may have a chance. I hope you get the idea, but if not, just read on and all may become clearer! The surveys were conducted between the 25th and 27th of September 2007.
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Following up, I suppose, on a recent ranking survey regarding what were the basic dealbreakers for potential spouses, goo Rankings came up with another entertaining survey looking at what husbands’ bad habits wives want to tell them to fix, but just can’t, and vice versa. The survey was conducted between the 28th and 30th of August 2007.

My wife informs me that she has no bad habits that I should ask her to fix (now that’s a bad habit that doesn’t feature on the list!), but my two main bad habits also don’t feature on the list, namely adjusting the lay of the land, as it were, and noxious gas emissions.

I suppose that number 15 for men and 18 for women is shorthand for a lack of rumpy-pumpy.
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goo Ranking came up with another of their interesting ranking surveys; as always, the accuracy of the figures and the method for collecting the data is unclear, but hopefully the results make up for the potential lack of quality! Between the 28th and 30th of August 2007 goo Ranking performed a survey asking women about the basic preconditions for potential husbands and men about the basic preconditions for potential wives.
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This rather revealing ranking survey by goo Ranking looked at what expectant Japanese women hope their husbands can do regarding childcare. I think the average western person (both male and female) may be surprised at how basic many of the hoped-for actions are. The fieldwork was conducted between the 20th and 24th of July 2007, but no further demographic information was given. Do any of my readers have first-hand experience of Japanese fathers as I cannot really believe that such basic tasks need to be wished for!
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