特写：日本男人的零花钱

choi

BBC Chinese, Sept 28, 2012
http://www.bbc.co.uk/zhongwen/si ... _pocket_money.shtml

, which is translated from

Mariko Oi, Why male Japanese wage-earners have only 'pocket money.'  BBC, Sept 27, 2012
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-19674306

Quote:

"Mariko Oi reports on the 74% of Japanese household budgets that are controlled by women.

""I started controlling the household budget when I became a housewife after having children," says Masami [Nozawa, the wife].

"According to Shinsei Bank which has been researching the trend since 1979, the average monthly pocket money was 39,600 yen last year. And to make things harder for the men, that compares with 76,000 yen in 1990 when people thought that Japan's economy was at its peak. That was one year after the nation's benchmark stock index, the Nikkei 225, reached a record high of 38,916. * * * And just as the performance of Japanese companies deteriorated, businessmen's pocket money fell with it.

"Their [Japanese men's] drinking budget has also shrunk to a record low. On average, they only spend 2,860 yen on a night of drinking which is almost half of what they used to spend just three years ago. That does not allow for a great many half litre bottles of Asahi - the average price is around 700 yen.

My comment:
(a) Plucked from the Chinese version of the report.
(i) Yoshihoro NOZAWA  野沢 義博 / Masami Nozawa  野沢 雅美
(ii) Taisaku KUBO  久保 大作 /  Yuriko Kubo 久保 百合子
(iii) yuri  百合 【ゆり】 (n): "lily"

All Japanese definitions are from Jim Breen's online Japanese dictionary.
(iv) married and maiden names
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Married_and_maiden_names
(sections 1.5 Chinese sphere, 1.15 Japanese)

(b) pocket money:  ポケットマネー (pronounced "poketto manei") or 小遣い or 私金.

kozukai 小遣い 【こづかい】 (n): "pocket money"

(c) The report quoted Yoshihiro (the husband) as saying, "She makes me a lunch box every morning so that helps a lot."

Thus, the Chinese version is wrong when saying, "野泽义博每天有便当带，太太每天中午给他带饭，不用再为吃午餐另掏腰包。"  Specifically, this is not found in the original (English): "太太每天中午给他带饭."  As you can see in the video clip, the husband received an obento 弁当 (where the "o" is an honorific 敬称, showing respect to the bento) from the daughter, before he left for the office.
(d) Softbrain Field Co, Ltd  ソフトブレーン・フィールド (based in Tokyo)
www.sbfield.co.jp
(e) Shinsei Bank 新生銀行 (based in Tokyo; founded in 1952)
(f) The report said, "So today, those whose wives don't make lunch boxes try to cap their daily lunch budget to one coin: 500 yen - about $6.50."

Japanese yen
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_yen
(table shows teh denominations of coins and banknotes)

(g) Now I understand where Taiwanese custom of wives controlling the purse string of the household (there is no statistics, though) comes from. Taiwanese have a phrase in Hoklo: "驚某大丈夫" where 驚 and 某 means "fear"and "wife," respectively.