Monday, December 9, 2013

Visible difference in a market

Chikirin, a famous Japanese blogger, introduced an episode.

Chikirin's diary: Write your own message into the sentence (in Japanese)

Recently she published an e-book via Kindle titled 'The way to grow Chikirin's diary'. It contains various tips bloggers should recognize, from concepts to writing skills. Jazzy-T, a Japanese blogger, reported gaining page views as ten times as before just after adopting Chikirin's suggestions. Chikirin was glad to know this. And then she proposed to us writing an entry with the same theme of his.

The theme is an assumption: you found a market you had never visited where very expensive goods were on sale. It was a so called luxury store. Consumers were also upper classes. Then, a six year old girl requested organic foods to a saleslady.
What do you think in this situation?

This kind of experience often occurs in Japan. The other day, I had an opportunity to eat breakfast at Imperial Hotel Tokyo. The American breakfast costed $30! To be honest, I usually pay only 3$ for breakfast. While the meal was delicious, however I did not think the cuisine was worth paying ten times of my usual foods.

I was surprised to know the fact that there were persons who were willing to pay such high cost.

Meanwhile, I wondered if foreign people would have the same kind of thought.

Most Japanese people share a similar sense of value. In Japan, there are few nobles. Although the difference of the wealth is widening, people suffering from absolute poverty is rare. Most of the people belong to the middle class in Japan. The homogeneity is what made me surprised.

In the western countries, the difference of the class is more obvious. I guess European nobles never enter a street market. Even if they do, they would not be surprised, as they know themselves. Too obvious matters are not perceived.

It is the same in developing countries too. The workers in a factory perhaps never possess the goods just they are producing. Furthermore, there are items they cannot buy with money regardless of the amount in such countries.

After all, it is an extraordinary experience that I saw an item not worthy for me to buy in a global point of view. Homogeneity, opportunity, and availability of money are all required for encountering such situations.

I am so lucky to touch another sense of value without no risk, I think.

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