Society

Majority want vaccination, many others want side-effect reassurance

Note: this survey was conducted in February, before vaccination had started in earnest.

This survey from Leading Tech looked at COVID-19 vaccine awareness.

Note also that an overused trope about Japan is its vaccine reluctance with respect to COVID-19 in particular. I attribute this to lazy journalism, as most of the evidence I have seen points to a general acceptance of the necessity of this vaccine, and Japan is not an outlier given that many other countries are finding the last 30-40% of the population difficult to reach, and lets not talk about the politicisation of it in the USA…

As noted above, since the survey was conducted vaccination of the over-sixties has begun without much incident or excessive dwelling by the press on side-effects, and hopefully within a couple of months we can see a significant decrease in serious cases and deaths, this persuading more people that the jab is worth it. In fact, on this evening’s television there was a short report of the latest figures showing even in the youngest age group about 45% wanted to get vaccinated soon, 35% were waiting to see how things go, and just 20% not planning to get it.

For myself, I’ll be getting it as soon as they open up appointments for my age group, which might be mid-August or so. My workplace is also planning on conducting vaccination of the staff, but I don’t know how long it will take to get it all set up.

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By Ken Y-N, ago

How the Japanese use dating apps

The Japanese used for dating apps is actually an English loan word, “matching”, so I’ll use that in this survey from Dimsdrive into matching apps and COVID-19.

In Q3, there were only five matching apps listed; surely there must be more than that?

Looking at the usage stats, perhaps not surprisingly men spend longer on these apps and are much more likely to spend money on extra services.

I met my wife through their predecessors, the classified ads in an English-language newsletter thing. We both experienced similar patterns of usage and payment to those reported here.
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By Ken Y-N, ago

COVID-19 lifestyle and side jobs

With people spending more time at home due either to work at home policies or being furloughed, it’s perhaps not surprising that some are looking at side jobs, the subject of this COVID-19-related survey from MacroMill.

Side jobs actually used to be banned by many companies until about a year or two ago when there was a big push to allow it, although I cannot remember what the driver for this national policy change was…

I suppose this is my side job, although if I counted up my income and expenditure it’s a money pit…

On the other hand, since I don’t need to commute, I can do much more overtime, so overall I’m better off thanks to the pandemic.
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By Ken Y-N, ago

Disaster preparedness in Japan

Just before the rainy season got fully underway (which will be soon followed by the typhoon season), the physical security firm SECOM conducted a survey into disaster prevention.

We’ve got evacuation bags, but I cannot remember where they are. We also have a box of emergency toilet poo bags, which I do remember where they are, so at least we’ll have a paddle when we are up the proverbial creek.

Only 35% using an earthquake early-warning system seems low, but I would guess that many people didn’t count the mobile phone early-warning system that is baked into most phones, but instead considered systems they explicitly opted into.
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By Ken Y-N, ago

Two-thirds of Japanese disagree with holding the 2020+1 Olympics, Paralympics

Personally, I think the Olympics should be treated as going ahead next year, but this survey from NHK (Japan’s public broadcaster) into the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics (PDF) found that I’m in the minority on this issue.

I’m moderately interested in the Olympics, but not enough to have applied for tickets, though. I think that cancellation now would cost more than keeping everything ticking over until next year, but of course there’s the argument that COVID-19 will not have a vaccine or reliable treatment before next summer, so cancelling now is cheaper than cancelling next next year. Postponing to 2022, though, is most likely impossible, so it’s next year or never.

Here’s a promotional video for 2020+1 as it seems to be now named:


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By Ken Y-N, ago

Japan and America in the age of Trump; part 3 of 3

This large-scale survey from NHK’s Broadcast Culture Research Centre looked at Japan and America, with particular focus on the current Trump regime. This will be posted over three nights in chunks of around 9 questions each.

The final part of this survey shows further how Japan perceives that America has lost its way, yet Japan still finds the country is it’s best friend.

Interestingly, despite Japan’s Prime Minister being excessively friendly to Trump, the people rate Obama as the greatest post-war president.
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By Ken Y-N, ago

Japan and America in the age of Trump; part 2 of 3

This large-scale survey from NHK’s Broadcast Culture Research Centre looked at Japan and America, with particular focus on the current Trump regime. This will be posted over three nights in chunks of around 9 questions each.

Although the Japanese press on the whole lauded Trump’s overtures to North Korea and made a big thing of the relatives of the Japanese hostages talking to Trump and getting a nice positive soundbite out of it, it was obvious to me that Trump was spouting any old nonsense in an effort to get his ratings. Satisfyingly, the Japanese public seems generally to share similar opinions.
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By Ken Y-N, ago

Japan and America in the age of Trump; part 1 of 3

This large-scale survey from NHK’s Broadcast Culture Research Centre looked at Japan and America, with particular focus on the current Trump regime. This will be posted over three nights in chunks of around 9 questions each.

I’m slightly surprised at the relatively positive view of many aspects of Trump’s policies, of not at their effects on Japan, but perhaps that is more a reflection of my media consumption. Japanese broadcast media mainly treats him as a normal president; only his more massive gaffes make headlines here.
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By Ken Y-N, ago

Japanese rate their government’s response to the coronavirus

This survey was conducted by the Mainichi Newspaper and the Social Survey Research Center into COVID-19 response. I’ve linked to the English version, but hopefully my tables are easier to read.
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By Ken Y-N, ago

How Japanese are living with COVID-19


This survey is ancient in terms of the progression of COVID-19, but there’s still interesting figures in this survey from @nifty conducted at the end of March into COVID-19. This survey was conducted before the Olympics were postponed and the state of emergency declared.

So far I’d put myself in the not really worried category; it is of course a serious disease and lockdowns are a justified response, but at the moment in Japan things seem reasonably under control and the collapse of the medical system seems to have been largely avoided, although in-hospital infections are a bit too widespread for my liking.

About the only thing I’ve avoided is going to the ENT clinic for my hayfever this season as I didn’t fancy sitting in a packed waiting room breathing potentially virus-laden air, so luckily first I had a bottle of nose spray left over from last year, and second an OTC version of the identical medicine was approved this year, so I could just visit my much quieter local chemist to replenish my supply.
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By Ken Y-N, ago