Friday, January 4, 2008

Fukubukuro - Fight for a Bag

Ready, set, go!! Run faster, even fight with others!!
Admist thousands of people, you hear " This is mine!" "No, I've touched it first!!"
And you see people who got a red bag enclosed after they paid $1000 for one happily passing the entrance.

Every year in the New Year's holidays, a lot of stores throughout Japan have "Fukubukuro Sale", where they sell Fukubukuro(Fuku means 'luck' and Bukuro, or Fukuro as its original form without sound changed, means 'bag').
In front of the entrance of a famous big store before its open, there're thousands of people swarm or line. Once the store opens the doors, the awaiting people start craming into the stores for a Fukubukuro. They don't sell so much Fukubukuro, so there're always winners and whimpers. If you really want to get one, you have to get at the stores as early as you can. Waking up in the early morning is enough? It's not sometimes because some Japanese stay up all night in front of the stores. This is Yamato Damashii or Shimaguni Konjo!
Oh, notice that the goods inside are NOT all the same. You don't know what's inside, you only guess they have clothes if you're in an apparel store. And you can't rip it out and look inside, because of its traditional pleasure that you don't know until you bring it home. All the bags look same. You need some Fuku or luck to get what you think worth... you might get what-the-hell stuff sometimes...if with bad luck, all of them are rubbish.
People who go there say they buy it because it's quite cheap or they want to try their luck as the start of the new year.
Price range are huge: JPY10,000 to even 10,000,000(equivalent to around US$100,000). Well I guess the average is 50,000 or so. Usually the goods inside the bag are worth more than its price.

Still yet, I don't understand why people take that risks. The prices sound expensive, and you can't see inside the bag so it probably has some(or all of them if no Fuku) goods that you don't want or need. Why dare buy such an expensive bag that you don't know whether or not all the goods inside are worth buying??
In front of 109, a very popular store among the young, a lot of the young started exchanging the goods they got. They probably change what they don't into what they want. That's a good idea. But I still wonder why not they just look for what they want.

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About this blog

In this blog, I tell you what Japanese workers do while they are working. I believe it's very mysterious to other country's people, especially Europians, because it is said that Japanese work style is different from other areas, and it is not easy for other country's people to come into the Japanese worker's territory, as not so many of them work in Japan. You have little chances to learn it from Japanese workers, because they're pretty busy working all the time. Even if luckily you meet some of them, unluckily they probably don't speak English. Remember that most of Japanese can't speak English.

Shortly, I reveal 'the real world of Japanese workers' in this blog. I also tell you something different about Japan and Japanese: life, culture, customs, etc. I hope you enjoy reading my blog.