世論 What Japan Thinks

Despite being a nominally Buddhist and/or Shinto nation, Japan has warmly embraced the Western secular spending spree festival we call Xmas, as well as retaining its traditional New Year shrine and/or temple visiting superstition.

MyVoice conducted a web-based opinion poll of 15,572 members of its internet community at the start of this year to see how they spent the 2004-2005 holiday season. The survey participants were 46% male, and over a third in their thirties.

Q1: How did you spend the New Year? (Multiple answer)

Spent with family	79%
Hatsumode (visit to temple)	40%
Gathered with relatives	25%
New Year greetings	23%
Went back to family home	21%
Ate out	17%
New Year sales	17%
Bought a lucky bag	13%
Went to film, theatre, concert, theme park, etc	6%
Went to play at friend’s house	6%
Domestic travel	5%
Overseas travel	1%
Other	7%
No answer	0.03%

Note that the 40% is low according to other polls, but Hatsumode does not officially finish until the 7th of January, after the end of the polling dates, and unofficially people will continue to perform what they consider to be Hatsumode until perhaps the end of January.
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In Japan, Christmas cards are, obviously, almost unheard of, so instead the traditional season’s greetings are done via 年賀状ハガキ nengajou hagaki, New Year’s greetings postcards. The themes for the cards usually reflect the Chinese zodiac with this coming year being the Year of the Dog, so no doubt, given the current dog boom in Japan, stupid chihuahuas will adorn most cards. I usually send cards out to my colleagues, but this year, thanks to new privacy regulations, the list of home addresses of my colleagues is now Company Confidential, so we have been banned from creating personal address books from the data!

SourceNext conducted a small net-based survey on people’s plans for the coming season, and found out the following snippets of information. The sample was 516 people from all over the country, exactly 50:50 male and female, carried out in mid-September.

Q1: Do you plan to send New Years greeting cards (not just postcards, including e-mail or mobile-phone message, etc) this coming New Year? (Sample size=516)

Yes	89.7%
No	10.3%

Q2: What way will you send your greetings? (Sample size=463, multiple answer)

Postcard	95.7%
e-mail	37.1%
Mobile phone	31.1%
Web-based greetings car service	18.6%
Others	0.0%
No answer	0.0%

Q3: Including e-mail, etc, in total about how many New Year’s greetings will you send? (Sample size=463)

10 or less	7.6%
11 to 30	28.3%
31 to 50	21.4%
51 to 100	23.3%
101 or more	19.4%

Q4: Including e-mail, etc, will you use separate designs for work and personal, etc, New Year’s greetings? (Sample size=463)

Yes	51.8%
No	48.2%

Q5: About how many different designs will you make? (Sample size=480 where did that number come from? Shouldn’t it be 463*51.8%=240? Since there are two sub-questions, everyone counts twice?)

Work use

Two designs	54.2%
Three designs	2.1%
Four designs	0.4%
Five or more designs	0.8%
Won’t make or won’t separate (ie 0 or 1)	42.5%

Personal use

Two designs	63.3%
Three designs	17.1%
Four designs	2.9%
Five or more designs	10.0%
Won’t make or won’t separate (ie 0 or 1)	6.7%

Q6: When do you plan on buying your New Year postcards? (Sample size=443)

As soon as they go on sale	20.5%
November (but not ASAP)	25.1%
December	31.4%
January (!)	0.7%
Not decided	22.3%

Q7: When do you plan on starting making (ie writing or printing) your New Years greetings cards? NB: Last posting date is 24th December. (Sample size=443)

November	5.6%
December 1st to 24th	64.8%
December 25th to 31st	17.2%
January	1.6%
Not decided	10.8%

Q8: How will you make the postcards cards? Answer for the picture side and address sides separately. (Sample size=433+433=886, multiple answer)

	By hand	Software	Home printing machine	Order from printing company	Others
Address side	33.0%	68.2%	1.4%	0.7%	1.1%
Picture side	16.5%	77.9%	4.1%	6.8%	5.9%

Q9: What sort of greetings card do you want to use? (Sample size=463, multiple answer)

Chinese zodiac picture or illustration	75.8%
Other illustration	30.2%
Pet photo	6.9%
Family or children photo	21.2%
Others	5.6%

Q10: About how much would you spend on greetings card design software? (Sample size=117) Presumably there was a “Would you buy design software?” question to cut down the sample size.

Up to 1000 yen	20.5%
Up to 2000 yen	26.5%
Up to 3000 yen	31.6%
Up to 5000 yen	17.1%
Up to 8000 yen	3.4%
Over 8000 yen	0.9%

Q11: Why would you buy card design software? (Sample size=117, multiple answer)

For this year’s original contents	77.8%
For the latest features	33.3%
Others	7.7%