By Kevin Cooney
Today was an important day in the life of this man. An new era, ushered in. Unchartered waters ahead, the great unknown beyond. I bought myself a TV. The key word in this sentence being... bought.
I understand that buying a TV may not seem like a big deal to you, but it is to me. It's big, it's boss and it makes the news caster's head bigger than my own. I plopped down way too much of my own hard earned cash to buy this thing. It was not without trepidation that I greeted the deliverymen this morning. That's right, deliverymen. It's so honkin huge it needed to be taken here by truck, and moved by multiple people.
I realize, now, I may have been a bit overzealous when I purchased it last week. It didn't seem quite so huge at the electronics shop. But now inside (what the real estate agent called) my "living room" is a wall of moving images. It's not unlike sitting in the first row of a movie theater, and getting slight motion sickness from the proximity to the flickering light and action. But who cares, it's big and it's boss and it's mine.
For many foreigners living in Japan, especially in their early years, buying a TV is a ridiculous concept. After all, your stay may be brief and apartments are rarely furnished. So, why invest in anything expensive. This is the first TV I've bought in 8 years in Japan. Mind you, it's not my first TV. I've had three. TV's like most home appliances (refrigerators, washing machines, etc...) are handed down through the ever-renewing generations of foreigners who come to Japan.
Basically, when one foreigner leaves Japan, or actually buys a new piece of electronics the old TV is passed on to someone recently arrived in the office, or some friend making do without the luxury of a TV set. You just walk into your office and say... "Anybody want a TV?" Chances are some other foreigner who has been here fewer years than you will want it. As the years go by, you slowly upgrade to better and larger TVs.
The classified ads of most English language publications in Japan are filled with the common plea "Sayonara Sale! Everything must go!" This is where people liquidate their lives as quickly as possible so they can get on that jet plane bound for home. Often the price tag is free.
But the cheapest market place in Japan is the curb. It's something no one is proud of, but everyone has done. Walking home from a night out drinking you come across a TV, sofa or some other item just laying in the street waiting to be picked up by the garbage man. When it comes to food, the Japanese are obsessed with using every last possible scrap. "Mottainai" they say, which loosely means, "waste not want not." Somehow, this doesn't apply to electronics. Many Tokyoites seem hopelessly obsessed with having the newest and best TV or refrigerator. As a result, the early morning curbside often yields a bounty of nearly new household furnishings. I've been in awe at the things some people throw away. Another man's trash is this foreigners refrigerator. Again, I'm not proud of this, but I do have a refrigerator, washing machine, beer fridge, fan, air conditioner, gas heater and lots of shelving. Courtesy of other peoples distain for any electronics over two years old.
You may call me a stingy garbage picker. I like to think of myself as an environmentalist. An environmentalist with a tight budget!
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