I came across an interesting picture showing a comparison of searches in Japanese on Google for “husband” and “wife”. It looks like the women who I assume are searching for “husband” related topics are experiencing some dark times, while the husbands searching for “wife” related topics are still up beat about things.
Here are some rough translations of what’s hot.
Searching under “husband”
- husband, I want him to die
- husband, I hate him
- husband, allowance, average
- husband, verbal violence
- husband, allowance
- husband, how to call (his name)
- husband, dead, procedures
- husband, depression
- husband, out of work
- husband, dead, pension
Doesn’t sound like the wives are that keen on having the husbands around. Either they are searching for ways to have them dead or looking over procedures for what to do after they have died. Life is tough!
Searching under “wife”
- wife, birthday present
- wife, birthday present ranking
- wife, present
- wife, hysteria
- wife, how to call (her name)
- wife, depression
- wife, present ranking
- wife, documents not received
- wife, shochu (sake)
Both lists have the word うつ meaning depressed or depression in them. Looks like a growing trend in Japanese society at the moment.
The English equivalents I got on my own computer were a little more bright.
and some results from the UK thanks to katiemuffett
What do the searches look like where you live? What would your top search be for one of these phrases?
Well wife swap is the name of a tv show here, so that will skew the ratings as people search for that.
It went up a lot after the “baloon boy” hoax because those parents had been on that TV show.
oh, I had read about this yesterday because Mari had posted it on her blog Watashi to Tokyo (smt.blogs.com). Looks like she linked it from a livedoor blog.
interesting to compare the US results though.
Wife swap… gross 🙂
Times aren’t funny in Europe, Japan hasn’t been exempted.
very true 🙂
RT @Shibuya246: Japan Google Popular Searches, Japan Living | Shibuya246 http://bt.io/AHXb
After seeing the show wife swap many times over here, i would not want any part of it. Some of the shows go to the extreme. And you wonder if these types of people exist? It might catch on in Japan, who knows of all the wacky types of programming there. It could be turned into more of a game show, rather than cheap reality that’s it made to be here.
Quite a comparison between the countries.
Some of the game shows in Japan are wacky enough without wife swapping as well. From the search results, sounds more like “husband swatting” might be in 😉
Ouch, not a lot of communication going on in Japanese couples. Those kinds of problems are why you have a partner: they’re there to work these things out with you. Maybe some Japanese psychologist will see this post and make a killing at marriage counselling?
The UK is very typically odd and joke-related in these searches. “husband/wife jokes”…”husband obedience trials”…”wife beater”…and the worryingly WTF “wifesnap”
http://katiesjapanfiles.wordpress.com/files/2009/11/googlesearches.png (sorry for the crappy pasting, this Mac only has Gimp)
Thanks for that info. I have just updated the post and included your piece in it. 🙂
Cheers! I do sometimes find the most disturbing insights into other people’s minds on Google search – one beginning with “how long after…” at one point came up with “…taking cocaine will it be out of my system”. Uhhhh, I only wanted to know how long I had to wait between doses of Night Nurse cold medicine.
LOL. way too much info 😉
I totally LOLed at seeing ‘Wife of bath’ in those lists XD I once had to write a paper on her and it was not the most pleasant experience!