世論 What Japan Thinks

Today’s survey from goo Ranking is a look at what words from a girlfriend would pour cold water on a boyfriend’s thoughts of marriage. For this survey, I have translated in the first person, although the question wording was obviously in the third person. There was no equivalent female survey reported yet.

Demographics

The survey was conducted from the 24th to the 27th of December 2013, and 1,076 people completed a private web-based questionnaire. Note that the score in the results refers to the relative number of votes for each option, not a percentage of the total sample. The survey was for men only.

Fortunately, when we were dating my wife never said any of the below, although I’ll refrain from reporting how many she has said since marriage.
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goo Ranking recently conducted a survey into when people think “we don’t really have to have our own wedding ceremony or reception!”

Demographics

From the 6th to the 9th of July 2012 1,016 members of the goo Research monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 60.0% of the sample were female, 9.9% in their teens, 12.7% in their twenties, 29.0% in their thirties, 27.0% in their forties, 11.0% in their fifties, and 10.3% aged sixty or older. Note that the score in the results refers to the relative number of votes for each option, not a percentage of the total sample. I’m not sure if unmarried people were excluded or just had to imagine how it might be for them.

I found this photo on Flick, and there’s something quite appropriate about it all just being a non-descript blur.

Japanese weddings are on the whole hopelessly formulaic, almost production line-like with a standard set of cliched events running through them; the entrance, friends doing an “amusing” skit, the bride dress change, the candle lighting, etc, etc, all running on a strict timetable – none of this open bar, dancing until dawn and amusing vandalisation of the new couple’s car, let alone people passing out drunk, the embarassing uncle trying to get off with the bridesmaid, or even a fist fight or two.

Just to toot my own horn, however, a number of our friends said our wedding was one of the best they’d been to, which I put down mostly to us actually smiling. If you ever look at Japanese wedding photos, especially the formal ones, it is not the done thing for the groom to look happy.
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Here’s my favourite kind of goo Ranking, looking at matters of love, this time being on how to tell your man you want to marry him.

Demographics

Between the 19th and 22nd of November 2010 1,171 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 50.2% of the sample were female, 11.3% in their teens, 19.1% in their twenties, 29.0% in their thirties, 23.4% in their forties, 9.6% in their fifties, and 7.6% aged sixty or older. Note that the score in the results refers to the relative number of votes for each option, not a percentage of the total sample. Note that for this question only the women answered.

It’s my favourite sort of survey as there’s always scope for answers to stray into downright weird territory, with this being no exception, although it could have got even more creepy, I suppose. Number 3 is quite a sad answer, as many Japanese women in the entertainment industry at least set themselves targets of getting married by a specific age. Number 30 initially seems very low, but remember that 30% of women in their twenties who marry have a bun in the oven, and only 10% of babies are born out of wedlock.
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Japanese weddings are another of these things you should experience as both a guest and as a bride or groom, and perhaps even as a minister. To find out what Japanese want to see more of and less of at these events, first what people wanted to do, for both men and women, and what people wish they’d stop doing at weddings, again also for both men and women.

Demographics

Between the 22nd and 24th of April 2008 1,048 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 51.7% of the sample was female, 7.1% in their teens, 14.7% in their twenties, 29.0% in their thirties, 27.4% in their forties, 11.6% in their fifties, and 10.2% aged sixty or older. Note that the score in the results refers to the relative number of votes for each option, not a percentage of the total sample.

Having been married in a kilt, the groom tossing was perhaps the most dodgy event for me! I wish they’d quit just about everything on the list in Q2, as the Japanese weddings I’ve been to have been universally formulaic and rather dull on the whole.

The trumpet shower mentioned in Q2 is trumpets that spit out metallic tape; the giant cracker is a similar effect, but with a huge launcher. The candle-lighting involves going round every table in the pitch dark with a big sword-like fire lighter and lighting a candle in the middle of each table.
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I noticed over on Mutant Frog Travelogue that Adamu presented the results of research by the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries and others into isues surrounding wedding banquet costs. Well worth a visit to check out the waste that goes on at such events.