世論 What Japan Thinks

Let’s spend a romantic moment or two together looking at a survey from goo Ranking conducted back towards the end of September into what pair of items unmarried couples would want to go shopping for with their lover, for both women and men. You hopefully know all about the lack of demographics and how the scoring works already.

As for me, maybe I’m just a tight-fisted git, but I always enjoy buying mobile straps together. Currently my phone features the following pair items: one 50th anniversary Miffy (actually, her brown dog), three Tottoros in a chain, one Hello Kitty Kobe Airport opening memorial Jumbo Kitty, and one Hello Kitty Kobe Weather-Cock House Weather Kitty Cock.
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Yesterday we looked at St Valentine’s Day in Japan; today we’ll move on to White Day. Last year, MyVoice surveyed 13,295 members (5,573 or 42% male) of their internet community to find out what they thought of the uniquely Japanese White Day. The age breakdown for this survey was 5% in their teens, 23% in their twenties, 39% in their thirties, 22% in their forties, and 11% aged fifty and over.

White Day is a uniquely Japanese event, as far as I am aware. After Valentine’s Day ended up as a day for only women to give presents for men, in order to redress the balance, and of course increase sales of chocolates, White Day was dreamed up, the chance for men to buy a present, usually white chocolate, thus the name, in return for any they may have received the month before.
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Since Valentine’s Day is looming large on the horizon, let’s take a look at a survey of the MyVoice community about how their Valentine’s day was last year. They received 15,003 replies to their internet questionnaire, with 57% or 8,571 of the respondents female. Almost 40% of the sample size was in their thirties, and in addition 5% were teenagers, 24% in their twenties, 22% in their forties, and 11% aged fifty and over.

First, a quick background on St Valentine’s Day in Japan; on this day, the women buy men presents only - the men’s turn comes around on White Day, March 14th (and I’ll be presenting a translation of a similar survey on that topic presently) - but they do not buy for their love only, they should also buy for their bosses, colleagues, and others, this being another example of the formalised tipping that goes on in Japan.
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