Opponents of the move fear tourists will be less likely to visit out-of-the-way Toyosu, which resembles a huge, modern factory and lacks the picturesque quality of Tsukiji
After years of delays, Tokyo’s 80-year-old Tsukiji fish market is closing on Saturday to move to a more modern facility on reclaimed industrial land in Tokyo Bay.
The new, 569 billion yen (US$5 billion) facility at Toyosu will open on October 11, over the objections of many working in Tsukiji who contend the new site is contaminated, inconvenient and unsafe.
“If the new place were better, I’ll be happy to move,” said Tai Yamaguchi, whose family has run fish wholesaler Hitoku Shoten since 1964.
The 75-year-old leader of a group of 30 women whose families run shops in Tsukiji opposed to the move, Yamaguchi feels it has been mishandled by authorities who failed to fully consult those affected.
“They are hiding so much,” she said.
Tsukiji now has more than 500 wholesalers employing several thousand people. About 40,000 people visit each day. Much of the angst over the move has to do with closing down a beloved local institution.
A labyrinth of quaint sushi stalls and shops selling knives and ice cream encircling the huge wholesale market famous for its predawn haggling over deep-frozen tuna and other harvests from the sea, Tsukiji has been supplying Tokyo’s fancy restaurants and everyday supermarkets since 1935. Its origins date back nearly a century.
Opponents of the move fear tourists will be less likely to visit out-of-the-way Toyosu, which resembles a huge, modern factory and lacks the picturesque quality of Tsukiji.
Makoto Nakazawa, 54, who has worked in Tsukiji for more than 30 years, said he dislikes the new space he will be working in and is angry over the closure of a market that has “fed Tokyo for years.”
Tsukiji is special, a place of unusual diversity in conformist Japan where misfits like avant-garde theatre actors and convicts are accepted, Nakazawa said.
