AKi's class

1. CS3A (Aki Siegel)
12DM171J Risa Shimodonari
2013/07/16
Field Report
“Kuchikomi Culture” between Japan and Korea
“Kuchikomi” means “Word of Mouth” in Japanese. In this report, I am going to write
about the differences of the way of shopping between Japanese people and foreign, especially
Korean people. The reason why I choose Korean people is I am going to study in Korea in
second semester. I wanted to know if Korean people use the websites of “Word of Mouth”
when they buy something or use some services. I was curious about this because I found an
article that Japanese people, especially women, often use the websites of “Word of Mouth”.
For example, “@cosme” is very popular and famous website of “Word of Mouth” in Japan.
This website reports latest cosmetics and also cosmetics ranking. Actually, I frequently use
this website. I suppose these kinds of websites are really useful. Then, do Korean people also
use the website of “Word of Mouth”?
I made questionnaire in Japanese and in Korean. Next are contents of questionnaire.
1st age, 2nd gender, 3rd nationality, 4th how often they check websites of Word of Mouth, 5th
whether they believe those information or not, 6th names of websites they know, 7th whether
they take information of Word of Mouth seriously or not when they buy consumer electronics
and cosmetics or use hotel, restaurant and mail-order service, 8th except for that kind of
websites, they have another things that they take seriously or not, 9th whether they have
bought something or used some services based on the information from websites of Word of
Mouth.
When I made questionnaire for Korean people, I asked my Korean friend to translate
Japanese into Korean. However, at that time, she said she has never seen websites of Word of
Mouth in Korea. Actually, Korean people do not have websites of Word of Mouth like
Japanese. I was surprised, because Korean people use computer more often than Japanese.
Therefore, I thought they check that kind of websites frequently. Then, I had to change some
contents of questionnaire for Korean people. I asked them what kind of things they use when
they buy something or use some services.
In this paragraph, I am going to give 11 figures. At first, I will show you about all of

2. my informants’ basic data. (Question 1 to 3).
1[Age of informants]
Japanese(Internet) Japanese(Paper) Korean(Internet-Facebook)
Teenager 21 1 3 25
Twenties 7 6 14 27
Thirties 1 1 0 2
Forties 0 2 1 3
Total 29 10 18 57
2[Sex of informants]
Japanese(Internet) Japanese(Paper) Korean(Internet-Facebook)
Male 9 4 2 15
Female 20 6 16 42
3[Nationality of informants]
In this research, I asked 57 people to answer the questionnaire in 3 ways. (1. On the
Internet 2. Via paper questionnaire. 3. Via Facebook.) These informants consists of 37
Japanese, 19 Koran and 1 Chinese. Also, 15 people are male and 42 people are female. In the
category of “Japanese(Internet)”, 2 informants(teen ager)’ nationalities were China, and
Korea, however, they were born and brought up in Japan. Therefore they are counted as
Japanese. In the category of “Japanese(Paper)”, 1 informant(forties) had lived in Singapore
and Hong Kong, when she was a little. However, her nationality is Japan and she has been
lived in Japan for long time. Therefore, she is counted as Japanese. In the category of
Korean(Internet-Facebook), 5 informants had lived in Philippines, Japan, and USA, however,
their nationalities are all Korea. Therefore, they are counted as Korean.
Japanese(Internet) Japanese(Paper) Korean(Internet-Facebook)
Japan 27 10 0 37
Korea 1 0 18 19
Others 1 0 0 1

3. Next, I will show you about the results of questionnaire for Japanese. (Question 4 to
10)
4[How often they check websites of Word of Mouth]
Japanese(Internet) Japanese(Paper) Total
Frequently 4 2 6
Sometimes 12 3 15
Seldom 11 3 14
Never 2 2 4
For question4, 6 Japanese answered “Frequently”, 15 Japanese answered
“Sometimes”, 14 Japanese answered “Seldom”, and 4 Japanese answered “Never”. As you
can see, about half of Japanese informant answered that they check websites of Word of
Mouth “Frequently” or “Sometimes”.
5[Whether they believe those information or not]
Japanese(Internet) Japanese(Paper) Total
Believe it 6 4 10
Do not believe it 1 3 4
Cannot give a definite answer 22 3 25
For question5, 10 Japanese answered “Believe it”, 4 Japanese answered “Do not
believe it”, and 25 Japanese answered “Cannot give a definite answer”. Over a half of
Japanese informant cannot give a definite answer when they are asked whether they believe
that information or not.
6[Reasonwhy they answered like that on the question no4]
In question6, common responses from the “Believe group” were
・Because I use only believable website(Which has a lot of number of access).
・It is really useful and interesting even only checking.
Common responses from the “Do not believe it and cannot give a definite answer group”
were

4. ・We cannot say that kind of information is always believable.
・Because it is just personal opinion.
・Some people might write wrong information.
For question6, common response from the “Believe group” was that, “it is really
useful and interesting even only checking”. Common response from the “Do not believe it
and cannot give a definite answer group” was that, “we cannot say that kind of information is
always believable”.
7[Names of websites of Word of Mouth they know]
・@cosme ・Taberogu(食べログ)
・Gurunabi(ぐるナビ) ・Kakaku dotto komu(価格ドットコム)
・Rakuten’s website ・Amazon’s website
・Yahoo chiebukuro(Yahoo 知恵袋) ・Hot Pepper
・OKwave etc…
For question7, they answered the names of websites of Word of Mouth they know in
Japan. These websites are famous and popular in japan.
8[How important the information of Word of Mouth is, when they buy consumer
electronics and cosmetics or use hotel, restaurant and mail-order service]
※Japanese Internet and Paper informants are mixed here.
Very important Important Not so important Not important
Consumer electronics 3 14 16 7
Hotel 5 24 6 5
Restaurant 6 17 11 6
Mail-order sales 6 12 16 6
Cosmetics 4 12 13 11
When asked about the type of product or service people use the Word of Mouth as
question8, Hotel got 5 points of “Very important” and 17 points of “Important”. Restaurant
got 6 points of “Very important” and 17 points of “Important”. However, Cosmetics got 11
points of “Not important”. In these 5 categories, Cosmetics is most reasonable thing.

5. Therefore, compared with other expensive items, people might think Cosmetics is not
important.
9[Except for that kind of websites, they have another things that they take seriously or
not]
※Japanese Internet and Paper informants are mixed here.
This question’s answer could be more than one.
Japanese(Internet and Paper)
Recommendation from friends 23
Recommendation from Family 17
TV commercial 9
Others 1
For question9, in terms of other advice Japanese seek, Recommendation from
friends and family got 40 points in total. It means Japanese people think the recommendation
from their friends and family is also important.
10[Whether they have bought something or used some services based on the
information from websites of Word of Mouth]
※Japanese Internet and Paper informants are mixed here.
This question’s answer could be more than one.
Japanese(Internet and Paper)
Consumer electronics 7
Hotel 12
Restaurant 18
Mail-order sales 7
Cosmetics 5
Nothing 2
For the question10, Hotel and Restaurant received high scores of 12 and 18. This is
similar to question8. As you can see from the question 8, Japanese people think information
of hotels and restaurants is important. That result is also reflected in this question.

6. At last, I will show you the results of questionnaire for Korean. (Question 11)
11[What kinds of things do Korean people use when they buy something or use some
services?]
Korean(Internet-Facebook)
Recommendation from friends and family 7
On the internet 9
TV commercial 0
Others 1
For question 11, 9 Korean people answered Internet is useful, while 7 answered
friends and family is useful. One person said Google and Naver are useful. Korean people
seem to think Recommendation from friends and family is important. However, they also use
Internet as I expected, though there are no websites of word of mouth in Korea.
Through this research, I found 3 interesting points. At first, the most surprising point
is there are no websites of Word of Mouth in Korea though Korean uses the Internet more
often than Japanese. Second point is about Japanese. According to my research, 21 out of 39
Japanese answered that they check websites of Word of Mouth “Frequently” or “Sometimes”.
However, 25 out of 39 Japanese cannot give a definite answer when they are asked whether
they believe that information or not. In addition, Japanese also answered that they think the
recommendation from their friends and family is important. Third point is about Korean.
Korean think recommendation from friends and family is most important, and that is almost
same as Japanese. However, 1 Korean informant said, they often use search engine like
Google and Naver instead of using websites of Word of Mouth. Then I found decisive
difference between Japanese and Korean “Kuchikomi Culture”. Japanese prefer to get many
kinds of information and they do not mind if that information does not have much connection
to one another, however, Korean tend to research about just only about one thing that they are
interested in.
At last, one thing I regret about this research is, the number of informant of Korean
was small. Therefore, it is not clear that whether the results were accurate or not. Also, I
could not ask many questions for Korean people, because I did not know that there is no
websites of word of mouth in Korea when I decided the theme of my report.
In conclusion, there is one decisive difference between Japanese and Korean

7. “kuchikomi culture”. At first, my expectation that Korean people also use the website of
“Word of Mouth” was collapsed in an instant, because there is no websites of word of mouth
in Korea. Then through my research, I found that Japanese people prefer to get a lot of
information from many sources, however, Korean people tend to tend to research about just
only about one thing that they are interested in. This is all I could find through my research
by questionnaire.