世論 What Japan Thinks

As my entry for the upcoming Japan Blog Matsuri, this time being hosted by Bill at Rising Sun of Nihon, may I present the latest research from goo Ranking on one of the strange and uniquely Japanese (well, I’ve never heard of such a thing back home at least!) custom of enumerating famous locations, etc, as the Three Great Things. The research for this was conducted between the 18th and 20th of January, but no further demographic information is available. All the sights will be linked to relevant images or web pages, so feel free to click through to see what the fuss is about. However, some of the text may be Japanese if I can’t find a suitable English web page. Note there is also a WikiTravel article on a few of Japan’s Three Greats. Also note that the order they appear doesn’t imply a 1, 2, 3 rank.
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Just today goo Rankings published a new survey, this time looking at what people would be happy about if it were invented within the next 10 years.As usual for goo Rankings, there is no demographic information, just that the fieldwork was conducted between the 22nd and 24th of February this year. In addition, on a similar theme they also asked what people would like to do within the next ten years.

In Q1, I’m very surprised the perhaps more mundane cure for cancer didn’t feature, although I’m not disappointed to see the clichéd flying car making an appearance at number 6. Also, I guess Asimov doesn’t count as a humanoid robot as perhaps people want to see an autonomous android-like device. I’m not really sure what number 10 is, however: perhaps it means you can walk on the ceiling too?

In Q2, the second place mastering one’s hobby does seem rather odd to me.
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Just in case you’re still wondering what to buy for White Day on the 14th of March this year, goo Rankings were good enough to publish a list of the top 20 things Japanese men want to give their women, excluding (or alongside) chocolates.

The fieldwork was conducted between the 18th and 20th of January this year. No further demographics are available. Note that this is what men want to buy, not necessarily what women want to receive!
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Just as a bit of fun, here’s a pair of silly surveys from goo Ranking, one from women and one from men on what’s the biggest turn-offs when being invited back for coffee. The fieldwork was conducted over three days in the middle of January, but no further demographic information is available.

Note that due to differences in social mores, and of course the ready availability of alternatives, visiting one’s girlfriend’s or boyfriend’s flat comes much later in a relationship than compared to the West, I believe.

Number 14 for women, not putting eggs in the fridge, seems rather out of place! It’s also interesting to see how what women look for in a man’s home differs from what men look for in a woman’s place.
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With today being official Day of the Cat – 22nd of the 2nd month, pronounced, with a suitable cat accent, にゃん・にゃん・にゃん, nyan, nyan, nyan, the Japanese for “Meow, meow, meow”, let’s look at a recent goo Ranking into cats’ cute actions. The survey was conducted between the 18th and 20th of January.

I’m disappointed that purring comes in a miserable 8th, and sleeping in laps is nowhere.
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After the rather heavy and depressing survey on public order in Japan, let’s change the tone completely with another light-hearted and lightweight survey from goo Ranking. This time they asked both men and women what things they would be most prepared to stand in a lengthly queue for. The votes were gathered between the 18th and 20th of January, but no further demographic information is available. As usual, the score for each item is the percentage of the top votes that it received.
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goo Rankings published another one of their silly yet slightly unsettling polls recently, when they looked at what things are impossible to do now that they are an adult. The original Japanese version is phrased to have a suggestion of regret, I feel. The survey was conducted between the 18th and 20th of December last year.

I can’t really imagine the thought processes that are required to make hopping in the bath with their parents the second most notable thing that adults cannot do.
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UPDATE: This diet does not work!

I’m sadly unable to find any surveys related to the biggest buzz on the English-language internet last week, the release of Apple’s iPhone, so instead I’ll report on goo Ranking’s look at the biggest buzz on Japanese web sites, namely what keywords people are using in goo’s search engine to look for natto. The data was collected between the 7th and 16th of January 2007, or Heisei 19 in the Japanese calendar, thus the title.

Natto is fermented soya beans, and if you search YouTube for natto you can see rather a lot of foreigners (and one cat) trying to eat it. (link flood coming up!) The shortage of natto has been widely blogged about, and was sparked by Aruaru Daijiten, a popular health (and quackery) show, who in their first show of the New Year introduced the natto diet, which is basically one pack of natto before breakfast and evening meals, then eat just as much as you normally do, assuming the natto hasn’t put you off your food altogether! The most beneficial way to eat natto is to stir it at least 50 times then leave it to stand at room temperature for 15 minutes. It’s something to do with assisting the production of DHEA to increase your metabolic rate, apparently.

In other related news, World Net Daily (I can’t believe I’m linking to that rag!) reported how soy beans turn you gay; natto may be one of the most potent soy bean products, if this video is to be believed! (Note – not really recommended for viewing at work, and probably highly offensive to the typical World Net Daily reader)
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goo Rankings (forgive me publishing yet another goo Ranking!) published a summary of the top-linked sites from their blog service.

Since this is not a survey, there’s obviously no demographic information, instead it had been generated from looking at all the outgoing links from all the blog entries posted during the month of December.
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In one of these strange and totally unscientific surveys that goo Rankings rather often conducts, we find out who the Japanese consider to be a model international couple. That is “model” as in “role model”, not “fashion model”. There is no demographic or other information for this poll, except that it was conducted over three days towards the end of November.

I believe the gist of the original Japanese question is after which international couple’s example would they like to model their relationship. One wonders about the thought processes that went on in the selection of two other-kind-of-model brides.

You may also note that all bar one seems to be a marriage with a white foreigner.

UPDATE: Following feedback from Roy, I’ve promoted (demoted?) Kumiko Goto to just “model”.
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