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Dear Customers & Friends
Hello from Japan! This is Kimono Flea Market ICHIROYA's News Letter
No.192.
Last Sunday, I was attending a kimono auction in Iga district( in
Mie prefecture) with Takeshi kun ( he is our new staff). At lunch time,
I called Hisami san, who was also working at our office ( she had an
antique items auction from afternoon, and was preparing listing items
alone in the office ). She came on line, and we were talking about some
items. Auction house is a big prefabrication, and has very high roof is
pillared by rebar.
Suddenly I felt the earth shaked. It was quite strong, which I have not
experienced recently. Approx 50 people were in the auction house, and
they became abustle to notice the earthquake. I looked up the ceiling
and saw big lights swang. We were still on line, and I was going to get
out of the house. Takeshi kun was near me, and he claimed we should not
go out. There was not a time to argue, I went out - auction house is
built in very rural district, and there were not anything which would
fall from upward. Risk of collapse of the auction house looked more real
for me.
Just after the escape, I heard Hisami san said ' Earthquake! Kowai!
(Scared!)' - she was alone in the office, and I worried about her -
'Was our office building safe? '
Earthshake stopped. However, we had to worry it might be the way big
earthquake near the epicenter.I experienced the Great Hanshin Earthquake
in 1995, and shake was way stronger, but at that time, media couldn't
tell anything until very late that it was fatality, which killed more
than thousands of people.
Over the line, Hisami san said shake stopped also at our office. I was
relieved to know that at least Osaka was also safe, so Yuka, children,
parents and staff were safe. However, we didn't know everywhere were
safe in Japan.
After several minutes later, someone got the news about the earthquake
- epicenter was Mie prefecture and intensity 4 in Iga. We knew we were
very near the epicenter, and we were relieved the earthquake turned out
to be not so serious and caused not so much damage.
When we felt an earthquake, we immediately worry about huge earthquake.
As you might know, Japan is prone to earthquakes. Pacific plate are
sinking just under Japanese archipelago, and it caused huge earthquake
every 100 - 150 years. Last Kanto great earthquake bigger than magnitude
7( Kanto is the east part of Japan includes Tokyo) was 1923, and the
former ones were 1894, 1855 and 1703. Most risky earthquake is Tonankai
Earthquake ( the middle Pacific coast, include Shizuoka prefecture).
They say that the huge Tonankai Earthquake will occur till 2030 and its
event probability is 80 - 90 % !
Earthquake prediction study has been tried, but possibility of the precise
prediction fall into disagreement. Some people says earthquake prediction
must be impossible, and it seems to become the mainstream.
About a week ago, we also had a earthquake (magnitude 3.4) in Wajima city,
where the famous urushi ware product center. I heard it broke valuable
urushi wares in the stock rooms and stores. From olden times, we Japanese
had been worried about earthquake. When people list the things they fear,
common expression is 'Jishin, Kaminari, Kaji, Oyaji!'. It means
'Earthquake, Thunder, Fire, and Father!' The last word was originally
'Yamaji', which means 'Typhoon'. My daughters must scare me more than
which can not be predicted, but ordinarily people have scared earthquake
first from olden times. As you know, Japanese house had to be made of
wood and papers, and earthquake easily broke them and fire easily
occurred and spread in a blink of an eye.
We are worrying about earthquake, but we heard incredible news a few weeks
ago. As I wrote previous mail news, the scandal was revealed that APA
hotel groups built their hotels and condominium buildings based on
fabricated earthquake-resistance data. However, we had to hear more
serious scandals later - Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport
published that they found more than 10% of medium-rise condominiums have
only 50 -90% of the fiducial earthquake resistance! They picked up 389
sample buildings from 6000 buildings which were built after 2001.
Not only that new, but also media published the problem about built-for
-sale houses.
Now, we are recognizing about 15% of the all recently built buildings don't
have enough earthquake-resistance! Many people bought condominiums and
built-for-sale houses, and what should they do if their purchases were
defective items.
I don't know why but at least mass media don't tell anything about their
claims. The report above was published by Mainichi Shinbun, one of the
major newspaper. If I bought a condominium, I had to claim the seller of
the condominium and demand the examination of earthquake-resistance
condition. However, I don't hear such demand becoming strong - I feel it
is very strange - mass media are under self-regulation ( pressed by
government not to invoke big loud bang ) or buyers already think they can
not expect anything about the problem.
APA group scandal was the second one in this fabricated earthquake-
resistance problem. Last year a company was accused to sell their
condominiums with strength poverty, and CEO was arrested. He is said
that he rodomontade 'If huge earthquake occurred, and our buildings were
broken, evidences also will disappear. So there is not problem!'
This is the sad actual condition of country with frequent earthquakes
Japan.
Today's story might not have been interesting - sorry!
However, today's listing includes FABULOUS items, which survived many
earthquakes. We will list two supreme Meiji uchikake, Taisho uchikake,
fukusa, uchishiki & antique items.
We are very happy if you could find your favorite among them!
We wish you a happy new week.
domo arigato gozaimasu
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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