世論 What Japan Thinks

Over the first five days of April 2007 MyVoice surveyed its internet community regarding the use of word of mouth web sites. To use the popular English buzzword, these sites could also be called CGM sites, or Consumer Generated Media sites, although I think that CGM covers a wider area than the word of mouth sites referenced by this survey.

Demographics

17,647 members of the MyVoice internet community completed a private internet-based survey. 54% were female, 2% in their teens, 19% in their twenties, 39% in their thirties, 26% in their forties, and 14% in their fifties.

I’ve used kakaku.com a few times myself to get ideas of prices and user opinions on home applicances and computer peripherals. The lowest prices they display, however, are potentially misleading, I feel, as I don’t know how or if they account for haggling or for special one-day sales and the like. On the other hand, I do feel their user ratings are quite reliable. Very well worth a visit before purchasing, and their simple star ratings make it very easy to find out which items are best in their class. However, I end up doing most of my buying in a bricks and mortar store.
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Over the first five days of April 2007 MyVoice surveyed its internet community regarding home loans.

Demographics

17,241 members of the MyVoice internet community completed a private internet-based survey. 54% were female, 19% in their twenties, 40% in their thirties, 26% in their forties, and 15% in their fifties. Note that since one needs to be over 20 to get a loan, teenagers were excluded from this survey.

I have a loan, and I fall into the higher brackets in Q3 and Q4. Note that contrary to popular belief, it is not impossible for non-permanent residents to get a home loan, although naturally, any credit scoring that takes place will be rather harsh on those without demonstratable commitment to Japan. I got mine whilst in the process of applying for permanent residency, although they did not ask for any proof that this was actually the case. I am also a full employee (正社員, seishain) of a major company, so that no doubt helped me get a scary multiple of my salary as a loan, one which I am due to be paying off until I am 75…
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Between the 1st and 5th of April 2007 MyVoice looked at all-you-can-eat restaurants. This is perhaps a subject dear to many foreigners’ hearts as they can find the portions in Japan a little small. This survey does not, however, cover all-you-can-drink offers.

Demographics

17,261 members of the MyVoice internet community completed a private internet-based survey. 54% were female, 2% in their teens, 18% in their twenties, 39% in their thirties, 26% in their forties, and 15% in their fifties.

I’ve got a few favourite all-you-can-eat restaurants in the Kansai area, and we tend to visit about twice a month. Rather than just listing them, let’s try a Google Map of the locations.

Click here to visit my custom Google Maps map.

My number one top spot is Solviva atop of the Hankyu Terminal Building in Umeda. It’s 1,890 yen for a varied selection of Japanese farm cooking, with some organic veggies here and there. There’s about forty dishes to choose from, then another ten or so desserts, organic coffee and tea, and a wonderful view from the counter seats looking north over Osaka. There’s also an alcohol menu with interesting shochu, from boring old wheat or potato base to milk via corn and sesame.

I also discovered this interesting page of reviews of other all-you-can-eat locations in Osaka.
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Between the 1st and 5th of April 2007 MyVoice looked at the use of mobile phone address books.

Demographics

17,310 members of the MyVoice internet community completed a private internet-based survey. 54% were female, 2% in their teens, 19% in their twenties, 39% in their thirties, 26% in their forties, and 14% in their fifties.

Note that almost all Japanese mobile phones come with phone book facilities, with the latest models providing facilities such as multiple phone numbers and email addresses per name, photographs, physical addresses, web addresses, and additional notes.

When I last upgraded it was a cheap upgrade through work, so I didn’t get my address book copied, and although I borrowed the latest version of a mobile phone backup package that claimed to support my phone, it failed miserably to copy due to the cable not working correctly, so instead I had to resort to using my miniSD to backup and restore, but still it couldn’t keep group information intact over the transfer even though I was changing from DoCoMo mova to DoCoMo FOMA. My wife had similar mail group issues at an official DoCoMo shop. Because groups are such a basic feature, it really it pretty disappointing that shops can’t copy that information, as I’m sure that perhaps puts people off upgrading, knowing that they have to tweak all their address book settings.
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Between the 1st and 5th of April 2007 MyVoice surveyed its online community regarding their feelings regarding global warming. New visitors may want to check out previous environmental-themed surveys.

Demographics

17,500 people completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 54% were female, 2% in their teens, 18% in their twenties, 40% in their thirties, 26% in their forties, and 14% in their fifties.

I’ve not seen “An Inconveient Truth” myself, although my wife did go to see the Japanese subtitled version. She did find the message compelling, but she couldn’t recommend the movie itself as she felt the tone was too hectoring, although I don’t know if that was a fault with the original version or of the translation.
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Over the first five days at the start of March MyVoice surveyed their internet community on the topic of personal computers. Note that I will use the term PC throughout, but the survey includes Macs and other kinds of home computers too.

Demographics

15,786 people successfully completed the survey. 54% were female, 2% in their teens, 18% in their twenties, 39% in their thirties, 26% in their forties, and 15% in their fifties.

As a side-note, I’ve often wondered by MyVoice has no-one over fifty-nine in their samples. Do they have to leave the online community once they reach that age? Do they really mean in their fifties or older in the group? Perhaps I should email them.

Back on PCs, I have a home-built effort, so if I define buying a new one as upgrading the motherboard, I think it was last changed in the year 2000. Marriage does tend to realign your purchasing priorities, or more precisely one gets one’s purchasing priorities realigned for one. I’m still blogging away on a 900 MHz AMD Athlon, and whilst I’d love to buy a dockable portable, or just anything with a quieter fan, sadly my budget is assigned to other things.
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Over the first five days at the start of March MyVoice surveyed their internet community on the topic of water purifiers and filters.

Demographics

15,793 people successfully completed the survey. 54% were female, 2% in their teens, 20% in their twenties, 38% in their thirties, 26% in their forties, and 14% in their fifties.

Although Japan is rich in natural water resources, as is the case in many other urbanised countries, after passing through much pipework (although no humans, I don’t think) and much processing the city tap water has rather a distinct flavour. In addition, there is the (usually unfounded) worry about bacteria and the like in the public water system, thus many people choose to use water purifying systems.

I’m not sure how to read the answers for Q4. For example, one in five doesn’t use tap water in the bath – I presume this must mean they don’t use cold water, as in the Japanese language hot water is distinct from cold, and perhaps there are some mysterious properties of heating to 50°C that makes it acceptable for use in the tub.
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Between the first and fifth of March this year, yet another survey that MyVoice conducted was into the matter of water-resistant mobile phones.

Demographics

15,771 members of their online community successfully completed the survey. 54% were female, 2% in their teens, 19% in their twenties, 39% in their thirties, 26% in their forties, and 14% in their fifites.

I must say this is perhaps the oddest mobile phone topic I’ve translated! The only waterproof mobiles I know are the rather chunky and masculine G-Shock watch-inspired G’zOne Casio mobile phones, although I don’t know what the situation is regarding just splash resistance in other handsets. I’ve never given mobile phone waterproofing any thought, myself, and quite frankly I worry about those people who seem to want to read ebooks on their mobiles in the bath, and I hope there is no intersection between the group wanting to use in the bath and those wanting to take photos!
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Between the first and fifth of March this year, yet another survey that MyVoice conducted was into the matter of elementary and middle-school education, covering children between the ages of six and fifteen.

Demographics

15,765 members of their online community successfully completed the survey. 54% were female, 3% in their teens, 19% in their twenties, 39% in their thirties, 25% in their forties, and 14% in their fifites.

Looking back on my school days, I cannot really say there was much wrong with the, alhough I did grow up in a small town where there were not many social problems. In the present day, however, I could rattle off a million and one things that may be wrong in both my home country and Japan. However, bemoaning the behaviour of the younger generation has been a universal trait since the days of Socrates.

I am surprised that Q4 and Q5 did not have more options about perceived failures of parents to teach their children how to behave, which I feel (as a non-parent) is an important issue in the degradation of the education system. Disturbances in class is just a symptom, not the root cause.

How do English language teachers or those with children in Japanese schools find Japanese schools? How would you rate the problems?
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Over the first five days of March this year MyVoice looked at the consumption of lactic-acid bacilli-laden fermented milk drinks such as Yakult, Calpis or Labre, or just plain old drinking yoghurt.

Demographics

16,032 members of their online community successfully completed the survey. 54% were female, 2% in their teens, 19% in their twenties, 39% in their thirties, 26% in their forties, and 14% in their fifites.

I drink low-fat (or is it low sugar? or both?) Yakult almost every morning, delivered door-to-door once a week. Whether or not it does me any good is debatable, it seems… On the other hand, they have the Tokuho mark on their bottles, which implies that it has passed some sort of testing of its claims in Japan.
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