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Hello from Japan! This is Kimono Flea Market ICHIROYA's News Letter
No.173.
Christmas is coming, and you must be very busy to write cards, buy
presents and attend parties. Here also in Japan, towns and stores are
dyed with Christmas colors. In Japan, this season is also for 'Oseibo'
- people give presents each other to whom they feel obligations.
Everything are as usual, but there is a prominent difference compared
to five years ago.
Recently many people like to decorate their houses with electric
spectaculars, and also near our home some houses are sparkling in the
night. Our block seems to be famous for 'Christmas garden'( such
Christmas decorated house is called so ), and we hear that many visitors
come every year only to see Christmas garden houses. ( We moved August,
first Christmas season here.) When I worked for a department store till
five year ago, I had never heard about 'Christmas garden'. I don't know
why, Christmas garden suddenly became an usual Christmas scene in Japan.
There might be an intended trend-setter. Anyway, here is a page with
lots of photos of Japanese Christmas garden samples.
http://www.nakajo.co.jp/obo/garden2005.htm
By the way, as you may know I had worked for a department store for 19
years before ICHIROYA, and at this season, I can't help reminding the
busy days at the department store of Oseibo/Christmas. Oseibo is a huge
market, and everyone prefer department stores for their gifts because of
store's status. Usual adult business person has approx 10 name/address
lists to send presents. Name lists are, for examples, bosses,go-between,
former teacher, family doctor and so on. If he is the business owner, of
course, customers, suppliers and bond lawyer should be added the lists.
Popular items are food and drinks, like beer, sweets, 'nori'( dried laver
seaweed ), cooking oil, coffee, tea, ham and so on.
Average price of the Oseibo gifts is about 4000yen( approx 35USD), so the
usual family use about 40000yen(approx 350USD) for Oseibo gifts, and
artificial person use way higher money for Oseibo.
At every department stores, because of Oseibo and Christmas, December sales
becomes prominently bigger than usual month. Department stores hire many
temporary staff, in addition, all back-office staff and executives are
pulled out to the store front.
When I was a staff of sales promotion division, I often worked as complaint
handler. In the complaint office room, phone calls rang all day long -
most complaints were caused by store side mistakes. Sent different items,
not yet delivered, mistakes about noshi writing, bad manners of delivery
people and so on. At first, temporary staff took calls, and apologized
and made arrangements for solution. When complaints were too serious to
handle by themselves, staff once closed the phone. I heard carefully
about situations, and called the customer back as a responsible official.
The constitution of department store is huge, and often the sales
division and distribution division didn't get along well, and when the
problems happened, no one would not take responsibility. I was only a
young staff, but I had to go to customers' houses often as a responsible
official of the department store.
Later I became a manager of sales promotion department, I used to went to
the store front of Oseibo gift center as a sales staff. Selling Oseibo
gifts were little bit difficult for us like temporary staff. There were
incredibly many rules - about discount and mailing cost. There existed
different discount rates for different items ( items were more than 5000 ),
different shipping rules and cost for different items, various payment
method with different discount method and rules. For a customer, we had
to write several slips and cash up again and again - it took about 15 -
30 minutes for a sales. After completed the slips, we brought the slips
and cash(or card, discount tickets and so on) to the CHECKER, and asked
to check our slips before went to the casher. Its whole system was like
a crazy quilt, and seriously difficult to be understood fully. At every
season, we had to remind the complicate system and in addition, some new
rules were added every year. So when a surly customer with thick
address list came, we temporary sales staff used to fell strong tension
and sweat.
Not only friendly customers, but also other kind of customers come to the
department store. Also at our store, a yakuza used to come to order
Oseibo. His two fingers were cut and missing, and wore with prominent
yakuza style, and with a button man . When I was worked as a temporary
staff, manager often nominated me for the man. I am chicken-hearted man,
but gift center manager seemed to consider that I always do precise work.
I would like to escape from that assignment, but I couldn't.
In his lists, lots of famous persons were included - some yakuza bosses
and show business persons. His address lists are long, and written in
very unreadable characters. I had to ask him tremulously, ' What is
these characters?' He ordered various items for each persons, and I
concentrated in listening and writing down them with desperation. He
used discount tickets, and as usual, counting was very difficult. 'If I
mistake the counting, I have to go to his yakuza office and ask more
money or pay back! If I mistake the item names, I may have to go
apologizing to another yakuza boss's office! His two fingers are already
cut for something mistakes. Do I have to cut my finger if I mistake? '
Fortunately I could accomplish the mission successfully every time. However,
I can not forget the stress I experienced. There are many interesting
stories this kinds, but I can not write here for the sake of credit of
the department store.
Today we will list some kimono, yukata, obijime, fabric and antique items.
Rare shouji and temple lanterns are included. We are very happy if you
could find your favorite among them.
Dozo have a nice December.
Ichiro & Yuka Wada
Kimono Flea Market "ICHIROYA"
http://www.ichiroya.com
e-mail: info@ichiroya.com
address: Asia-shoji Bldg.301
1841-1 Nishi 1 chome
Wakamatsu cho
Tondabayashi city
Osaka 584-0025 JAPAN
TEL&FAX ****( international number ) - 81-721-23-5446
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