世論 What Japan Thinks

At the start of December last year, MyVoice surveyed its internet community on the subject of train manners. 13,586 people successfully completed an internet-based questionnaire. 54% of the sample was female, 3% in their teens, 21% in their twenties, 39% in their thirties, 24% in their forties, and 13% aged fifty or older.

Interestingly enough, the most common gripe I hear from other foreigners about the trains in Japan, that of people reading porno manga openly, irritates just 6.6% of the sample, and is seen as bad manners by barely three in ten, less than the number who consider putting on make up as a sign of poor breeding.

For me, snuffling without blowing one’s nose is the most boorish activity on trains, but that’s just my westernness showing! Not bothering to turn one’s phone to manner mode would come second, and it is mostly people who seem old enough to know better who do this, sadly.
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At the start of this month MyVoice conducted a survey into functional sweets and other confectionaries. 13,384 people from their monitor group successfully completed a private online survey. 54% of the sample was female, 3% in their teens, 21% in their twenties, 39% in their thirties, 24% in their forties, and 13% in their fifties.

I chew xylitol-based gum every night after dinner, but was surprised to see how few others were daily consumers. My wife did try the chocolate diet with no success, however. The argument is that cacao-rich chocolate (75% or more) has very little sugar but lots of fibre, plus the caffine boost might have something to do with raising your metabolic rate. However, you are only supposed to eat 20 grams or so after each meal, and the high levels of caffine and other constituents can seriously adversely affect a significant percentage of the population, so I cannot recommend it to anyone.
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At the start of November MyVoice surveyed its community to find out what they thought about DecoMail. 8,806 people completed the survey; 54% were female, 2% in their teens, 21% in their twenties, 39% in their thirties, 25% in their forties, and 13% in their fifties.

DecoMail is basically HTML email for mobile phones, allowing you to embed photos, graphics and simple HTML font and colour changes, etc into your message. Almost all of the new generation (DoCoMo’s FOMA, Softbank’s 3G and au’s WIN) of mobile phones support the creation of it, and older phones can display it as it gets converted into a web link at some stage in the delivery process. It can also be sent to (and received from?) external mail servers, although the exact process is as yet unclear. As indicated by this poll, it has got a wee bit of a following, and in fact my wife has recently been getting DecoMail from her friends (and from me too) even though her older phone doesn’t support displaying it inline.

I’ve now just sent my account here a test message (resize your broswer to VGA, please…), which arrived as a multi-part MIME message with the first part plain text (with special DoCoMo characters stripped), the second the HTML version, and the remaining parts the inline graphics. That design is a pre-installed template, already complete with the scrolling text (which goes a long way towards getting it its spam rating), awful colours, and all the other hideousnesses! Some of the other templates are even worse…
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UPDATE: I have been informed by some of my readers that bukkake may in fact have a second meaning in addition to being a style of topping for noodles. I am currently researching Google to try to confirm this matter; I may be some time.

Last month MyVoice published the results of a survey they conducted amongst their internet monitor group to find out their views on udon. 12,182 people successfully completed an internet-based questionnaire conducted over five days at the start of October. 54% of the sample was female, 2% in their teens, 20% in their twenties, 41% in their thirties, 24% in their forties, and 13% in their fifties.

Udon, thick wheat-based noodles, is one of the two main home-grown noodles in Japan, with soba, a thin noodle made from buckwheat, being the second. Personally, I dislike udon, and even more dislike eating out as my Western manners-sensitive ears find the loud slurping noises from fellow diners extremely off-putting and irritating.

I’ve also heard of none of the regional dishes mentioned in Q1.
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MyVoice conducted a number of surveys of their internet community at the start of October, and one of these was on the subject of delivery food. 12,313 members successfully completed the questionnaire, with 54% of the respondents female, 2% in their teens, 21% in their twenties, 41% in their thirties, 24% in their forties, and 12% in their fifties.

One surprising omission from Q2 is that great Kansai staple, okonomiyaki. When I used to regularly visit one shop (now sadly closed down), they’d always be two or three orders for delivery processed whilst I was eating.

Talking of okonomiyaki, I was watching some English language educational program on NHK a few months ago, and in their random foreigner talking on the topic of the lesson segment, they had a guy walking to work in Tokyo, telling us how he passed down a street with restaurants selling local Edo delicacies like the aforementioned okonomiyaki. NHK must have deliberately left that in to entertain the locals by laughing at the ignorant foreigner.
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Over five days at the start of October MyVoice surveyed 12,563 members of their online monitor panel by means of a private internet-based questionnaire on the subject of video calling from mobile phones. The sample was 54% female, 3% in their teens, 21% in their twenties, 39% in their thirties, 25% in their forties, and 12% in their fifties.

My new phone has video calling facilities, but I think I’d be too shy to use it more than just once for the novelty value. I can think of perhaps times when I’m searching for something in the shops and if I phoned up my wife she could help steer me towards the required goods, but one problem in large shops is that there is often no signal, and anyway just sending a photograph may suffice.

Advertising seems to have dropped video calling as a selling point – it’s mostly music, One Seg, and the seemingly doomed Push To Talk that get most publicity time.
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Back to one of my favourite subjects, Japanese teeth! This time, it was MyVoice who conducted the survey of 13,741 members of their internet monitor panel. The survey was conducted at the start of June this year, with 46% of the respondents male, 3% in their teens, 22% in their twenties, 39% in their thirties, 24% in their forties, and 12% in their fifties or older.

I’m just finished my regular dental check, although this time due to various reasons it was about seven months since the last one, so I needed one filling replaced due to some decay beneath it. All in all, including ultrasonic cleaning, the bill came to just over 3,000 yen with bog-standard Japanese national medical insurance.
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At the start of September MyVoice surveyed their internet monitor pool to find out their bicycle usage habits. 13,091 people successfully complete the private opinion poll; 46% were male, 3% in their teens, 21% in their twenties, 38% in their thirties, 25% in their forties, and 13% aged fifty or older.

It may be interesting to refer to a survey from last year on carrying children on bicycles. Riding is downright dangerous for not just the rider, but pedestrians and cars too, as rules of the road (or pavement) are mostly ignored. The average rider seems to treat ringing the bell or squeeking the brakes as a sign to everyone that says “Get out of the way or I’ll run you over!”

Note that the standard bicycle in Q2 is most often a heavy, single gear machine with front basket and very unsubtle brakes. When I was a kid, the nearest thing was the boring old three-speed Raleigh, which was probably more technically sophisticated than the current Japanese models!
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Having just recently translated surveys on health checks and fitness, let’s visit the other end of the spectrum by looking at a survey from September by MyVoice on fast food. 12,847 members of their internet community completed the private opinion poll; 54% were female, 3% in their teens, 20% in their twenties, 39% in their thirties, 25% in their forties, and 13% aged fifty or older.

Note that this survey was carried out whilst the importation of US beef was banned, which may very well have adversely affected Yoshinoya’s rating.

My only fast foods are the very occasional Mister Donuts and Subway, each once a year, if even that!
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With me on a Shinkansen up to Yokohama for the CHES (Cryptographic Hardware and Embedded Systems ’06 Conference rather than attending a regular health check, it would be quite appropriate to look at this survey conducted at the start of last month by MyVoice into health checks. 13,126 people from their monitor pool responded, 54% female, 3% in their teens, 21% in their twenties, 39% in their thirties, 24% in their forties, and 13% aged fifty or older.

In Japan, I believe the law states that all companies must provide their employees with annual health checks, but the law doesn’t state how detailed they should be. In my employer’s case, every year we get our height, weight, urine, eyes and ears checked, and a chest X-ray. I personally opt out of the chest X-ray most times as it’s apparently a check for lung cancer and TB, but according to reliable internet data, there are far more effective tests for latent TB and X-rays should only be needed to confirm an outbreak, and as for lung cancer, first I don’t smoke, and second, once it’s big enough to turn up on an X-ray it’s most likely terminal. Japan also has the highest number of medical X-ray exposures per person per year and the highest rate of cancer attributed to medical X-rays, two facts which I can’t help feel are connected somehow.

My company also once every three to five years does a blood test, poo test, and a barium meal, plus additional ten-year checks, and also recently has started annual fitness tests consisting of grip strength, bike riding, sit-ups, reaction times, balancing on one leg with eyes shut (yes, really!), and recovery rate checks, which is the test I’m skiving out of today.

In addition, many local councils offer their residents various free checks at various stages of life.
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