10-06-06 Friday "Fish Market Madness"

FRIDAY FISH MARKET MADNESS

The day started at 4:00 AM for me, before the Tokyo Metro subway is even in operation. I took a cab with three ladies, whom I had not really met, being as there are 180 people not in my group of 20. For the most part, I have been hanging with a few really cool people I have met from my group; Andrew, Kip, Jen, and Virginia. The difference today was that Kip & Andrew left the hotel somewhere in the area of 2:45 AM to see the Tsijiki fish market WAY WAY early. I was shot and settled with sharing a ride with some people I didn't really know.

Cab ride. We hopped in a taxi that was "all tricked out" featuring computer generated navigation maps with the works. This had been my first real experience in a Tokyo cab and for those of you who have not really driven on the other side of the road, you feel like you are in danger the whole time, until as they say "you get used to it." I am still not used to it.

Rain. Our driver spoke not a syllable of English but did bring us relatively close to the market with the proper prodding. The road was lined in street vendors near the three miles of warehouse, but we didn't know that where we were wasn't the actual market itself. After not seeing any signs of an auction site, the vet teachers decided to follow me. So my first move was to venture out into the tail end of what I have since learned was a monsoon.

Pouring boatloads of water on us, I acted as the communication specialist for the wavering women cowering from the elements. Asking a number of vendors "Fish, dokko desku?" my common-placed inquiry eventually led our little group to the shocking Shangri-La of tuna.

The warehouse weave began about 5:00 AM, after about a half an hour of searching.

When you first enter Tsijiki, it is a blinding white blur of Styrofoam boxes. For as far as your eye can see, merchants package fish and other friends of the sea into little plastic caskets. The merchants set up shop right there on the spot; the very same spot that live fish are slaughtered and diced and turtles are beheaded.

Fish Market


Essentially, Tsijiki is a Japanese version of a glorified American slaughter house, with the exception being we do not invite our customers in to witness what it takes for a cow to become a double cheeseburger.

After walking through about two warehouses of vendors, we finally made it to someone with a map. The warehouse worker was very friendly, although we were probably the millionth visitors to ask where we should go. He spoke no English, but easily directed us to the public visitor section.

We opened a door to a divided off section and marveled at fantastic rows and rows of gigantic frozen fish. The icy steamy fish from what I understand are the fish from the last previous days that did not sell in the daily fresh auctions of one particular fish company. There were a number of large areas divided off like this one, meaning the market had a few main fish companies that wholesaled to the many many large distributors, who in turn would sell to the vendors who could not afford to buy such large pieces.

"Flash" freezing is done to kill possible parasites in fish that are to be served raw. Many companies will want to buy the fish afer the have been frozen so that they do not have to go through the process.



For freezing purposes, the sections behind the heads had all been hollowed out. Men hosed down some of the fish to better show the coloration of the fish. They also cut off the tails with hatchets so that buyers could examine the quality of the fatty meat; more expensive and relished by the Japanese for high end quality sushi. They had also at some point skinned back a flap just above the missing tail to see the color of the interior meat below the skin.

I began to lose parts of my curious party about this time and moved out of this warehouse to the live fish section of another. For as far as the eye could see, lines and lines of blue bins held thousands upon thousands of live swimming fish, jumping out of the crammed cages from time to time, seeking more space due to there lack of allotted space. IV-like tubes oxidized the water to help the fish live longer. Some bins were so full that the fish could barely move.



As you should probably guess by now, the Japanese are all about eating the most fresh food possible.

It was a little upsetting, but again, so would seeing how a butcher makes his livelihood. While living conditions during the time the fish were dispensed from half pipe slides that came out of the ceiling are not the greatest. It would not be long before these fish would be in the bellies of many Japanese all across the country. An English speaking person said that 95% of all the fresh have been consumed by the same time the next morning, Then "it all starts over again."

Alone, I crossed my way back to the frozen warehouse where I heard a bell ringing and a whole lot of commotion. I didn't realize before that the frozen warehouse was situated very closely to the daily fresh auction, roaring to go on the dot at 5:30am.

"What in the hell is that? A whale?!"

"You could probably fit two or even three of me easily inside the belly of some of these suckers!"

Just a couple of thoughts entered my mind about how different a world I felt like I was in at about this time. The black and shiny tunas weighed any where from 400 pounds to a few thousand. Stickers were being slapped onto fish indicated which fishing company had caught them for compensation and also starting bids. With a few hundred swarming about this warehouse room, about the size of a fourth of a football field, a few guards indicated to the 15 or twenty onlookers (who were obviously not there to buy) that they had to stay in the garage-like doorways.

Watching the people bid on the huge fish was a little bit like watching the stock market and Gilligan's Island on TV at the same time. They did their thing with no concern or interaction with spectators. This is a daily ritual of their lives.



I caught up with a cool Social Studies teacher from Washington DC and asked him if he had seen the live fish section. He had not so I walked him over to the area and watched his jaw drop. Journeying back even further than I had before, we made our way to an eel tank, just before the edge of the loading dock that led to water and a few boats.

It was amazing just how friendly the warehouse workers were. One took time out of his schedule and posed for pictures with me. He pulled an eel out of the tank with his hand to show me its teeth. I said to the other teacher and a woman who had made her way over to our little eel tour, "I wonder how many times a day these guys get bit."

After a wet dodging between various warehouses, and a final peek through a farmers market like warehouse, we made our way to the subway and back to the hotel, just in time for a western and eastern buffet style breakfast.

The western featured eggs, bacon and sausage, but I really wanted to try some eastern cuisine...yes...FISH!

I looked down at my plate at a slice of salmon smoked and seasoned and had a better understanding of where it had been maybe only a day before.

Later on, after a quick shower to remove my aura of fishiness, I went to the Women in Japan workshop. In so many words...not very interesting. What I am learning is that numbers are EVERYTHING to the Japanese. In America, we think a great speaker really helps us make a connection to what they are trying to express to use by illustrations. We crave little anecdotes that we can relate to and better help us understand a context. Here in Japan, everything is a percentage, a pie chart or bar graph to get a point across.