Doing my part to preserve Japanese culture

My friend here is getting a bit concerned about the
quantity of used, bargain grade kimonos, yukatas,
and obi’s I have bought and jammed into suitcases.

She vows that I am NOT getting any help lugging
this stuff back to the airport. I am now at my luggage
weight limit. I have bought all the bargains in Japan!

I really really find it difficult to resist.

My friend worries that I have filled my
luggage with stuff that is close to trash.

First, a bit of background on trash I Japan:

I have a natural magpie instinct. I have
had to severely control it while I am here.
Such behaviour is one of the worst
social crimes in Japan. Last night on tv I saw
a report on a “Gomi-Ga”: an old guy who has
a storefront house and has turned packrat
and filled it with so much trash that the piles
push out onto the sidewalk. Ok, no big
deal - things like that happen in Canada too.

Letting your trash pile up is 1000 times more
offensive over here. Understand that you
have to pay to throw ANYTHING out in Japan,
and that illegal dumping carries a really really
stiff fine. Japan does recycling, and energy
saving, and conservation in an intense and
so well organised manner as to make a Canuck
environmentalist despair.

Trash picking is frowned upon almost as much as
not sorting your trash properly for recycling,
and/or not using the right, prepaid bag to dispose
of your daily scraps.

(My friend translated the notes left by her apartment
supervisor taped to non-official trash bags in the trash
room at her apartment - it is under 24hr video surveillance,
so that mystery leavings ar equickly identified
- I’ll post some pix with xlations soon!)

So saving/ storing/ selling used stuff is generally
frowned upon over here. And, the “gomi” term
doesn’t just mean trash -
It’s meaning is closer to “trash with shit on it”.

So used stuff is problemmatic in Japan.

Back to used clothing:

My problem is that the traditional clothing
of Japan is very beautiful. Damn hard to
resist.

It is also a pain in the wallet to maintain properly.
It also takes up a lot of space. With an ageing
population, a lot of it just ends up in the rag
bin or the incinerator. Unlike western t-shirts,
used kimonos seldom end up baled and exported
to devastate traditional clothing markets in 3rd
world countries.

When they are gone, they will be gone for good.

A used Kimono shop used to be almost
a contradiction in terms, or a tourist trap.
Recently, things are changing as the older
generation dies off.

At a station Mall , four stations away, there is a
shop that is part of a chain of used Kimono
re-sellers. High end. All good looking as new.
No hint of abjection or mess here!

And they know their stuff!

They specialise in the high end of the trade:
Perfect, used once and thoroughly cleaned
articles; Obi’s starting at $50 and up.
$1,000+ used full outfits!

My friend thought
it would be a good idea to show
me some of the good stuff. Besides, I had
just sucessfully survived a visit the local
public bath (that’s another post) without major
trauma or upset and deserved to have a
little treat. I don’t think she counted on them
having a bargain table!

The nice sales lady explained that these had
moisture stains and/or dust stains and were
for craft purposes. The prices ran from 100
to 500 yen. Perfectly folded, clean-looking
(until you look closely) No tears, no rips:

JACKPOT!

Sorry. . . they don’t have an English store
name. The closest thing to a translation

would be "kimono chest"

UPDATE:

Here's the website:

http://www.tansuya.jp/

Cheers