No touching, or licking, at Tokyo fish market
Posted: Thursday, January 22, 2009 11:42 AM
By Arata Yamamoto, NBC News Producer
TOKYO – "We got up at 4:30 to see this and it was really worth it," said Tim Roberston, after visiting Tokyo’s famous Tsukiji Fish Market with two friends from Melbourne. "It was probably the best sushi I've ever had."
Sections of the Tsukiji Fish Market in central Tokyo reopened to tourists this week, lifting a month-long ban which according to market officials was put in place due to the busy year-end New Year's trade.
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| Katsumi Kasahara / AP |
| Visitors watch frozen tunas on the floor during a morning auction at Tsukiji fish market in Tokyo on Jan. 19. |
But the local Japanese media all characterized the shutout as the result of increasingly disruptive behavior, or as they call it "bad manners," mainly by foreign tourists.
Bad behavior prompted closure
The Tsukiji Market is a bustling nexus for fish and fresh produce traders, the largest of its kind in the world with mini-turret trucks scurrying through narrow alleys handling more than 2,000 tons of marine products every day.
It's considered the gateway to Tokyo's kitchens, providing the freshest of fish to wholesalers and restaurants, and its daily trade is estimated to be worth $20 million.
In recent years, with the help of the growing global popularity of sushi and appreciation for Japanese cuisine, Tsukiji has become one of Tokyo's main attractions for visitors from abroad.
But not everyone was pleased with the influx of visitors.
"We never promoted this place as a tourist destination," said Yoshiaki Takagi, an official from the Tsukiji Market. "It's not Disneyland. The facilities are 70 years old and dangerous. And besides, we're trying to provide food for the city."
Some of the complaints from traders include flashes from cameras which could be disruptive during the fiercely competitive bidding process, a ritual that requires careful attention to the auctioneer's subtle hand signals and price calls.
A slip – or a missed sign – could be very costly, especially if they're handling the much coveted Pacific blue fin tunas which can command prices of $10,000 a fish.
Other offenses that had wholesalers aghast have been people touching fish with their bare hands, in some instances riding them and smoking on the quality-controlled trading floor – damaging fish that could end up at a five-star sushi restaurant in Ginza.
And when video surfaced of a visitor licking a prized tuna before the morning auction – it was seemingly the last straw that prompted the ban.
Reopening – with rules
The market has reopened on a let's see-basis and with additional precautionary measures in place such as having two guards standing by during the 5 a.m. tuna bidding and distributing leaflets to visitors detailing the market's rules in five languages.
Yet some are more than happy to see the return of the foreign visitors.
At Oedo, a small counter-only restaurant tucked inside the market, an employee handed a red light pointer to a group of foreign customers so that they could select their choice of fresh tuna and salmon rice bowls from a wall covered with pictures of their specialties.
"Ninety percent of our customers this morning were foreigners," said Izumi Nishimoto, who works at the restaurant. "Last month we took a bit of a hit."
But despite all the effort, the opportunity to see Tsukiji may not be around for long.
The city of Tokyo is planning to move the market to Toyosu, a reclaimed strip of land on Tokyo Bay by the year 2014. The reason is that much of Tsukiji's equipment, even though its part of the charm, is desperately antiquated and the small maneuvering space has proven to be increasingly dangerous.
It's a plan that's not free of controversy, however. The main concern, and one that has drawn criticisms from some of the Tsujiki traders, is that recent tests conducted by the Tokyo metropolitan government showed high levels of pollutants such as benzene and cyanogen in the soil at the new location in Toyosu.
As a result, the city has devised a $650 million plan to replace all the polluted soil by setting up a special soil-cleansing plant, a painstaking procedure that is expected to take two years.
"At the new site, the city is planning to install proper facilities to accommodate visitors so that we can confidently welcome them," Takagi explained. But as for the Tsukiji market, he said that while they're not trying to completely shut out tourists, "if people still want to come and visit, there are risks involved and if they're willing to take personal responsibility, then ... "
Now a lone station for an automated monorail system stands at the vacant lot for the new Toyosu site. But the main action and the bustle is definitely across the bay at Tsukiji. If you come to visit, just be forewarned that you might be in for a harsh chiding from one of the Tsukiji fish mongers if you break the rules.
