A Walk Around Tsukiji

So, today we're going for a walk around Tsukiji, Tokyo's fishmarket, the largest fishmarket in the world, where 1/3 of the worlds fish is sold, and other impressive statistics as well. Being important to Tokyo, the market is a brief walk from Ginza, which in Europe would be like having a giant poultry market outside Hyde park.

Its quite easy to find. Just look for a giant fish.


Alternatively, you can follow the signs.


　 The symbol here represents the fishermen carting around enourmous fish on electric-powered carts. But that is during the morning. I once turned up with a camera at 6:20am to see it. It essentially involves lots of men in waterproofs selling fish, cutting fish, weighing fish, or washing down a huge low-ceilinged expanse of stalls.

　 This time, however, we are going for the lunch session. But, before we go, lets stop at one of the ubiquitous Conbini (convenience stores) to fortify with a hot can of coffee. Despite the mildly Jinglish feel of this message, it is, actually, a fairly accurate description of how you feel drinking the can of coffee.


　 So, near the entrance to the market area, you can find a number of posters encouraging you to come to Tsukiji market. Even though you're already there.


　 This guy is saying "Tsukiji on Saturdays is INTERESTING". This tells me that none of the locals care to turn up to Tsukiji on a Saturday.

This lady advises to keep an eye out for shops in the market bearing this sign. This is because Tsukiji is celebrating its 350th birthday. Unfortunately, the shops with this sign are not neccessarily the ones that are 350 years old, just ones that are selling products related to the anniversary celebration.

Whereas this good-luck welcoming cat is holding a sign saying "full-power business". You can visit his website here, and click on the links to see photos of the market and here you can see old school photos of Tsukiji, including one when it used to be in Nihon Bashi ("Japan Bridge", now the site of the Bank of Japan), prior to the Great Kanto Earthquake, 1923.

Now, if you want to get the best value Magurodon (raw tuna on top of a bowl of rice) - 500Y ($5) is a bargain, but at lunchtime you have to contend with this.

Now, if you're in a hurry, Onigiri can work, but we're here to find a bowl of raw tuna.

Now, we could sit down in the smallest restaurant known to mankind,

or we could go somewhere upmarket,

but lets take a walkt around, in order to find the perfect place. OK, while we're at it, how about some authentic Tsukiji fisherman rubber boots. Only $21.

Or a christmas tree with dish scrubbers hanging off it?

Now, since we are here, we do need to check out the fish. Just look at that. Isn't it beautiful?

These massive prawns look good enough to eat already. Imagine how tasty they are cooked!

Live seaslugs?

Or some huge crabs. $17 each.

If you're looking for affordability, look no further than here. Y500 ($5) buys a whole load of fish eyes. Useful for making miso.

But what's this?

Just a range of stuffed animals at the dried fish shop.

And there is the polar bear.

The other good news, is that if you want some dried fish products, you can buy them in a golden Hello Kitty figurine.

Now we're getting closer to the goal. Lots of salarymen eating outside.

But we're heading inside the market.

These stall owners really work very hard.

and a lot of them are advanced in their years

this guy has the name of the shop wrapped around his head. Serious attitude.

Now, this place looks just right. Not too shabby, but still "street" enough.

the owner is focused and hard-working. And there is a giant bottle on the counter. All good signs.

As soon as I sit down, I know I've struck gold. NHK has been filming here. And they only do the top-level best stuff.

Here we are. Y700 ($7). Bargain.

Mission accomplished.

And this experience somewhat reminds me of the market.

Its important to have patience.

But be ready to pounce when the time is right.

Career Test

　 Now, here is a test:


Look at the picture below.


What do you see?


　 If by now you're not splitting your sides with laughter, you can be fairly sure that you're not an accountant. TAV is Tangible Asset Value, something widely discussed as part of the FinMay (Financial Mayhem).

Hidden Message?

What is the true message of Gozilla?

　 Let's firstly take in some facts:

- Gozilla ("Gojira", an ammalgamation of Gorilla and Kujira, or Whale) is originally believed to be a monster god that lives in the sea and comes from the ocean to feed on mankind

- Gozilla's footprints are contaminated with radioactivity

- The creature is later proved to be a dinosaur mutated by atomic tests

- After firstly harrassing a far-away (non-existant) island, on which the villagers put up futile resistance, Gozilla descends upon Tokyo, killing many innocent people

- Tanks and other conventional weapons are useless against Gozilla, due to his atomic breath

- The hero uses an all-powerful weapon, the "oxygen destroyer" in order to get rid of the beast. But, since he fears that this all-powerful knowledge is too dangerous to be out there in the open, he does the honourable thing, and kills himself as Gozilla is destroyed

- The film firstly came out in 1954

- Gozilla the film features a lot of panic, military, and mass evacuations

Now, is it not reasonable to put forward the hypothesis that Gozilla is in fact....



　.... America ?!

The statue is found right in the middle of Tokyo (Hibiya), it says "It is believed that this is not the last of the Gozillas. 1954":


　 Also, the gloominess of the 1954 film (see trailer), reminds us of how useless the broad media is in understanding how things are moving. Even though the film expresses popular uneasiness and fear about bad stuff like nuclear weapons at the time, Japan was on the cusp of one of history's most impressive economic expansions. From the 1960's till the 1980's, Japan growth was nothing short of miraculous.

While we're at it, we may as well remember that King Kong, who did bad things to America, was made into a film in 1933.


　
Coincidently, this was also the bottom of the 1930's bear market:

　 So, when is the next apocalypse film out?

Confessions.

When I was in Cambodia, I read lots of books about Thailand (and, when in 'Nam, I read a lot of books about 'Bodia). One of them was Confessions of A Bangkok Private Eye.

This is a collection of ten or so cases, which largely feature the client (Western man) meeting him in a coffee shop, asking him to find out whether his girlfriend/fiance (Thai bar girl, always originally from the provinces) is cheating on him.

The answer is almost certainly "YES!"



On special offer in Pnom Penh (photocopied version only)

From hundreds of cases, the author decides that the stereotypical Western man/Thai bar girl relationshiop is doomed before it has even started due to:

*** the age gap (man is usually >40 years old)

*** the culture gap (her English is usually tailored to the needs of her trade - "hello you like me, ok?", he can't speak any Thai)

*** the fact that she's earning money by dancing around a silver pole and whoring


Usually the bar girl has several "patrons" who all think that they are the one. They send her a monthly "salary" in order to get her out of bar-work, and other men. Not only that, but she also typically will continue to engage in the same activities she did before she met her knight in silver-hairstyle/ shining pate.

One case involved a ladyboy, who a UK accountant mistook for a girl. S/he insisted on no sex before marriage. Part of the deal was that the chap would fork over some money as a dowry. The ladyboy was going to use it to pay for the op. If it wasn't for the detective, the poor guy may never have found out.

So, given the odds, why do these men do it?

Buyer beware

The answer to this question is the same answer as one of the many psychological falacies when dealing with the market - the endownment effect.

The typical reaction of the client, when presented with evidence of cheating, is "I want more evidence", and "...but my girl is different".

How is she different? Did you not pick her up in a bargirl-bar? Did you not pay her for nocturnal services? This reaction of denial - "Give me more evidence" is phase one of the Kubler-Ross greif process: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance.

Markets also behave like this. In the market, holding a losing position and refusing to believe that the market is moving against you is denial - "this is a temporary move".

Secondly, and slightly weirdly, in most cases the cheated-on client (and you've gotta think what were they thinking giving a full-time whore a salary), after being faced with damning evidence of the cheating, does not cut their losses, as you may expect. (In the market you don't really get final evidence until you're blown up, but even then you could be stuck in denial mode, so the analogy here is weak, due to the continous nature of the market vs. the descrete event of the whoring revelation).

The middle-aged lover, then has an urge to confront the girl with the evidence, or, better yet, walk in on her getting friendly with her Thai boyfriend/husband. This is the Anger stage. And most clients of the author went through it.

Shortly after this they mostly went off to weep/lick wounds in some dark corner, the next stage being bargaining "I only lost X $k", depression, then acceptance.

Moral of the story:

In order to not lose more money than you need to in the market - stop getting emotional. Don't marry a ladyboy.

Japan Blog

Third Reading of Ben Graham

What was new this time?

In order to make money in the market, you need both to be right and the market to be wrong.

Wise.



Japan Blog



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Rough Crossing.

Is the process of a boatfull of holidaymakers getting shocked by a rough sea similar to a turbulent market?




Oh no.

From Koh Samui to Koh Tao ("Turtle Island"), I had to take the two-tier boat carrying c. 200 people. The sun was out and the sea air was fresh. There was the usual impatience to get on at the pier, and a general mood of excitement prevailed during boarding and manouvering of the boat out of the quayside.

Hungover young men/boys were sleeping on top of bags, and each other, on the deck. Fresh-faced travellers swapping stories in that familiar routine - how much does it cost, how long it take to get to Bangkok, or to the next island, did you like Chiang Mai, is Cambodia safe, how much is the plane ticket? A local Thai was holding a well-behaved rust-coloured chicken, wrapped in a hotel towel.

We depart, the bus-like vessel ploughing through modest wavelets. Conditions progressively roughen, and the mood livens up further. A roller-coaster type squeal spreads from the front of the boat backwards.




Are we paying for this?

The waves are getting more powerful. We are heading into the wind. The squeals of enjoyment are getting higher pitched, with a trace of horror in some girls’ raised voices.

A bronzed, fleshy Swede is laughing progressively harder at her skinny friend's comic genius, even as skinny friend is looking increasingly pale. The hungover layabouts start to stir.

Now the waves start becoming well-defined, rolling swells followed by leisurely-sweeping valleys. Pitch, roll, and yaw are all well-represented, with the bow of the boat nodding forwards, then swaying drunkenly to the right, now with increasing velocity, now smashing into the base of the valleys. Swedish girl is now laughting self-consciously, looking around, realising that everyone else has gone quiet, skinny friend, most others are looking down into the thick blue-painted deck.

You need to show me some respect.

Thai chicken guy looks unfazed. As does chicken. I mentally perform a safety audit of the boat - not good. Not good safety features, I decide. And not good that I'm thinking this way. Whats the worst scenario? Leave the bags, hang onto the passport. The sea is warm here. But the waves are looking more and more hostile.

We are not sea-sawing anymore. The boat is now climbing like a timber truck up a steep hill. Every time the hull climbs another crest and swoons head-first we feel closer and closer to the water. The white foam spray from the impact ricochets around the bodies of the young men now standing up, trying to avoid the vomit being distributed across the deck with the force of a fire hose. The funfair amusement park screams of entertainment and surprise coming from the passengers below deck are now low groans, only coming out when we have a yet-steeper pitch or more gut-wrenching roll.

The fat girl shuts up, looking pale. She leans over the side. When will it be over? Scanning ahead we can't see any sign of land. But, peering out there we can see that the sea is mercilessly, remarkably, getting worse. Just a little further ahead the waves are taking on a life of their own. The groans are replaced by silence. There is a feeling that this is a bad sign. We are now nothing but a container full of vomiting, clinging, watch-glancing bags of fear. Only the chicken pokes its head around in curiosity. The silence is all the more damning for the contrast with our former giggling selves.

I knew this would happen

Yes, we are defeated.

Is the sea calming down a fraction, or are we just getting used to the violence of this bucking horse? No one is looking up to check anyway.

The waves only start to deminish when we are close enough to the island to make out individuals on the pier. But the chatter doesn't yet return - except for the fat Swedish girl - until it is clear we are not going over, then everyone feels they need to utter some words of relief. Back we are to conversations about how to get to Bangkok, how much did that hotel cost.

Moral of the story?

Buy when the fat girl starts to chat again.