No 114


Dear Customers & Friends
Hello from Japan! This is Kimono Flea Market ICHIROYA's News Letter No.114.Ichiro is struggling to get valuable items with fighting with competitors, how are you? In our business, sometimes everyone look gentle to us, but sometimes everyone look very tough - sometimes fighting with competitors is a very tough and difficult works. Business bibles say that we must hate the competitors, and must wish to make them bankruptcy. They say we always must be tough negotiators to leave the profit to us. When my daughter said, 'My hope is only to be the person who contribute the world!" , I advice her " You can become easily the person you want. If you pick up trash on the street, your act must contribute to our town. You are already the person who can contribute the society. But if you want to help more people efficiently, you must prove you have the best ability to do that. So you must not hesitate to be competitive, and defeat antagonists."Yes, we must always be strong and tough player in the market, if we want to offer more good value and contribute to the society. But sometimes we want to be too gentle to the competitors and other business partners, and feel gloomy mood to fighting ---- But yesterday I went to Super Sento ( Huge Hot Spring Bath ), and washed the gloomy mood off, and slept enough time to refresh my fighting spirits.
Today I am going to write about the 'pachinko'( Japanese pinball) and 'slot' ( Japanese coin game). There are lots of glitzy pachinko halls not only in the big towns, but also at the small towns all over Japan. If you have been to Japan, you must notice the showy signboards all over hell's half acre. In front of the them, you can hear the continuous noise of jangling sounds of pinballs, noisy music and annoying announces. If you get into pachinko hall, you will be surprised at the serried ranks of pachinko ( or slot ) machines like soldiers. Many people sit in front of the machines, and look intently at the machines. They are not only the adult men, but also women, young lady and elder people. A figures says the pachinko population is nearly 20 million, approx 1/6 of the whole Japan population. Officially pachinko and slot are said to be the national 'leisure' .
If you have a chance to come to Japan, let's try Japanese national leisure.At first you must buy(rent) balls or coins in thousands yen, and you must select machines, which seem to have different rules and design, but look the same. Once you select the machine, you sit in front of it, and only turn the hundle or push buttons as casino machines. Your balls or coins will be lost only a few minutes. And if you want to continue another few minutes, you must buy with another a thousand yen. You can easily lose more than several hundred dollar in a day.Of course you may win more than thousand dollars a day, if you are a very very lucky person.When you win you bring the balls in the container to the counter. They give you some `keihin'(prize)like chocolate or something which seems worthless to you and these things can be coverted into cashat the very narrow backstreet where there is a very small and almost unnoticeble booth with a small window. You just give the keihin and you will receive cash. No need to speak a word.
Polices in Japan says it is a 'leisure' , and never say as a 'gamble'. The total sale of pachinko(and slot) of Japan is said to be 25 trillion yen, which is more than automotive industry. You must to feel how pachinko market is giant, if you compare to Japanese national budget, which is approx 70 trillion yen.Many retired police bureaucrat get plum jobs in pachinko companies and economic group. Pachinko groups also sponsors the mass communication largely. So the pachinko is destined as 'leisure', and not 'gamble', even though there are many problems about this national gamble.
There are many people, who become pachinko addict. They pour all their disposal income in to pachinko, and many of them continue to play pachinko with renting money from consumer financing. Many people become heavy debtors, and turn to crime,or suicide. Lots of college students abandon their studies because of addiction to pachinko. Every year pachinko company's owners are charged with evading tax, and pachinko company said to be the nest of huge evading tax. Some people say 70% of the pachinko owners are the North Korean residents in Japan and their families, and send huge amount of money to North Korea.
When I was young, I had enjoyed pachinko for 20-30 times. It was the good old days, and the machine was an old fashioned type--I had to bring by finger for each single ball. I was a very weak player, and I always lost a few thousands yen except a few times.
Pachinko and slot halls are very familiar to us, and usually I feel nothing about them. But only an occasion, I feel gratitude for slot. One of my competitor likes slot, and he sometimes wonders at kimono auction - 'whether I should go slot or stay late for more valuable items. I have found the slot machine, which I can win --'. At that time, I whisper him, 'Your are the genius also in gamble! Your select slot machine must be way profitable than waiting rare items at this auction. You had better go --- '.
Thank you very much for reading our newsletters.On Monday morning(it will be in about 6 hours from now)we will be adding new arrival kimono,a very unique vintage susohiki, a sublime vintage fursode, a few contemporary furisode and bolts.We hope you have some time to check our new arrivals.We wish you a happy new week.domo arigato gozaimashita
Ichiro & Yuka WadaKimono Flea Market "ICHIROYA"http://www.ichiroya.com
e-mail: info@ichiroya.comaddress: Asia-shoji Bldg.301 1841-1 Nishi 1 chome Wakamatsu cho Tondabayashi city Osaka 584-0025 JAPANTEL&FAX ****( international number ) - 81-721-23-5446