No80

Dear Customers & Friends Hello from Japan! This is Kimono Flea Market ICHIROYA's News Letter No.80. In the end of the month we always have auctions every second days. I must leave our office early in the morning on auction day, so I can not list our items in the morning. Before the auction day I stay late at our office and list items in the mid night, and go to bed. I sleep for several hours, and go out for auction very early in the morning. After coming home from auction, usually late at night after long drive with exhaustion. I go to bed immediately after dinner. Next morning I get us early and start listing at 5 a.m.. At 9 a.m. staffs come to our office, and we start our work time. At 5 p.m. staffs end work, and come home, and I stay in the office, and work until mid night to list new items. And next morning I get up early and go out to auction again ----So listing time become random according to auction schedule. These days staffs are trying to write description of the items, so we expect we will become to reduce excess job time. And we are very happy if we can share! more time to get other antique goods like urushi, iron or porcelain items. Today Ms. Mitsuko came to our office. I was a home tutor of her when she was 15 years old, when I was an university student. She didn't memorize history and some other subject, and failed entrance exam in spite of my excellent lessons! Later she worked for a bank after graduation, and became a tax attorney. I didn't notice her ability about figures while teaching, she found it during her experience in the bank. She passed difficult certification exam of tax attonrney with ease! Now she teaches me about tax and account, and sometimes get angry at me about my writing way of cash receipt book and reciept. And sometimes I cannot understand what she is trying to explain about account! She was only a small girl, and was not a good student. Now I am a bad student of her-I feel very stupid in front of her, the position is completely reversed.
February 3 is 'setsubun'. When I was a child, my father and mother threw soya beans with saying 'Oni wa soto, Fuku wa uchi!". Which means ' Get out of here ogre, please come in happiness!' At setsubun, at the day of the change of seasons negative vibes (ogre) are considered to be born. So people beat them off by soya beans. We opened the windows and doors, and threw beans with shouting. And we could eat beans, which we threw. But father said we were allowed to eat the same number as your age. So father could eat near 40 beans, but I was only allowed to eat 10 and little. What a fun it was to threw beans at each other! I have a younger sister Setsuko, and used to throw beans each other. She was born on Feburary 3, the day of 'setsu'bun, and she was named 'setsu'ko. ( My parents seemed to have used easy association to name their babies!). These days we didn't throw beans, and it may be because our family doesn't have little children any more.Recently Yuka served 'hutomaki(ehomaki)' at setsubun day. She said eating hutomaki was the tradition, but my family didn't have such tradition and I am wondering what it was. http://www.sej.co.jp/news/h17kami/010701.htmlIt is said that if we eat them directly as it is without cut or tear partly, in paticular direction 'eho', happiness will come. A few days ago, I read an article about hutomaki, and everthing added up. It was really a tradition in small district in Kansai. Recently sushi and dried laver seaweed market( or convenience store ) promote their products by spreading this tradition to all over Japan. It was the similar situation to the chocolate at Valentaine's Day in Japan. Sushi is everyone's favorite and eating sushi in such wild way(without cutting) is a lot of fun, so I think this `quite new' tradition will remain and become a real tradition of whole Japan.
Thank you very much for reading to the end. Today we have listed some cotton, obi, rare firemen's jacket, fabulous susohiki for geisha and bolt. Most rare item is an antique samurai jinbaori. We are very happy if you could check them.http://www.ichiroya.com/item/search.php?md=0131
Have a nice Sunday!
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