Traveling to Japan is relentlessly weird. Our body clocks were out of whack for the first few days from horrific jet lag and we were wide awake at 2 AM on our second morning in-country. So, we caught a cab to downtown Tokyo to the the stranger than fiction Tsukiji Fish Market, the biggest fish market in the world.
Tsukiji handles more than 700,000 tons of seafood a year worth about $6 billion. More than 400 varieties of seafood, from tiny whitefish to enormous tuna worth millions of yen, are bought and sold there every day.
The Tsukiji Fish Market makes the Pike Place Fish Market in Seattle look like child’s play — way too packed to throw fish around. It covers multiple city blocks and seems to go on forever. Essentially, it is insanely controlled bedlam, going full tilt boogie from midnight until 5 AM.
Walking through the enclosed labyrinth of the Tsukiji Fish Market is not for the faint of heart. We never had any idea where we were. The passages between each business were often not much wider than a person. There were these weird circular forklifts zipping around in every direction laden with boxes of seafood, barely squeezing by, with the operators standing at the wheel like brave ship captains. Bright fluorescent lights in the ceiling gave off a harsh — sometimes blinding — light. Bundled up bookkeepers sat huddled in tiny shacks calculating the money passing hands. There were long carving tables where men in blood-stained aprons wielded all sorts of sharp blades as they methodically sliced up the fish. People were constantly yelling back and forth. There were fish tanks and air bubbler tubs filled with shellfish, octopus, eel, shrimp, crabs, clams, lobster, poisonous puffer fish, and god only knows what. Plastic buckets lined the way, containing dead fish soaking in their bright red blood. And ice — more ice than you can possibly imagine. The place felt like a death freezer.
We stood in awe for a half hour and watched a master carver slicing up a $200,000 blue fin tuna with special saws and blades like a Samurai fish swordsman. Four almost reverential fishmongers dressed in black assisted him in rolling the large fish and removing the sliced cuts as if handling gold, which in a sense, it was. The master carefully cleaned the fish and his long blade with a wash cloth after every slice of the knife. It was like watching a religious ceremony.
Master Carver w/Blue Fin Tuna Video – https://www.facebook.com/inna.young/videos/10216982457134081/?__tn__=%2CdlC-R-R&eid=ARBGgb7eJwWlNRNrXGdatYdzOIpfj_5uZFDe5rYJtHpz5J-dwXeM0S4QxfmGZpI8pqX0dmVYwD3EnqEJ&hc_ref=ARQWHvItgkej4EFIPzGJDs7VSBaNO97kKHrKY5F8kFoektqcMeXPLYxYJpe2-GYjKyU
The market was beyond real — or even surreal. There was little or no smell, and it exuded a calculated efficiency within a maze of narrow butcheries piled high with white, blue, and green Styrofoam boxes filled with lovely seafood of infinite variety, heading off to everyone’s favorite seafood house around the globe. It ALL starts at Tsukiji.
A few weeks after our visit to the fish market we discovered that we had been there on the next to last day before they moved the whole facility to newer and much larger digs down along Tokyo Bay. And true to Japanese efficiency, they were able to complete the move seamlessly in two days. That’s like saying they moved the Chelsea meat packing district in two days!
BBS News Story of the Tsukiji Market Closing – https://www.cbsnews.com/news/tsukiji-fish-market-tokyo-japan-closes-2018-10-06/
The new fish market will operate under far different rules. Apparently having tourists strolling aimlessly through the market maze where forklifts were operating and everyone was walking around with sharp knives was an aggravating pain in the ass. Tourists will now be banned from the area where the action takes place.
This is not the first time the market has tried to get a handle on access. Visitors to the Tsukiji Fish Market were banned in 2008. And to be honest, I was amazed they let us just roam around the place and go wherever we liked. It was like letting tourists play on the tracks at the Tokyo Train Station.
So, at the new fish market the visitors will be herded onto overhead balconies where they can gaze down on the proceedings. It’s hard to imagine that it will have the look and feel of the borderline scary place we visited. Maybe that’s a good thing. Having tourists in the middle of such potentially dangerous chaos is probably not wise. But I’m glad we got to experience the madness in all of its glory before they tamed it.
The broader issue for the Tsukiji Fish Market is the sustainability of the fish trade. Japan consumes six percent of the world’s fish harvest and imports and exports more fish than any other country. And given the fact that the United Nations estimates that eighty percent of the world fisheries are over-harvested, it’s not looking good for the fishies.
After World War II, fish were the main source of protein for the Japanese people and the seafood industry helped build the nation into an economic powerhouse by catching as much fish as they could. Nothing has changed. The average Japanese not only likes fish, but also believes that eating fish is good for the country. Texans feel the same way about beef. It’s in their blood.
Japan has recently implemented a program that labels fish with the blue and white MSC (Marine Sustainability Council) seal of approval if they were caught from a sustainable fishery. And there are programs on Japanese TV regularly about the need to sustain the world’s fisheries. But less than one percent of fish sold in Japan have the MSC label. And the figures each year regarding Earth’s fish stocks show a steady decline in every species.
I’m not a scientist, and I don’t know enough about our planet’s capacity to keep producing fish in the face of relentless factory ship harvesting, but my trip to the Tsukiji Fish Market left me with one lasting impression: This level of consumption can’t go on; something’s got to give.
