The Fish Market:

     The fish market (click to play 25 second video) helps provide food for Tokyo's 12 million inhabitants.  Fishermen work through the day and night to catch the market produce necessary to meet the daily supply and demand of the city.  In the fish market, there are many small stalls separated by cloth curtains where shoppers can go to buy food or supplies for the day.  This includes a wide variety of fish, paper goods, knives, and produce.

     The fish market auction starts at 6 a.m. with many bidders coming in to buy their restaurant and sushi fish.  After buyers carefully check the fish that are laid out on pallets for inspection, the market starts with a loud clang of the opening bell followed by loud shouts as the food suppliers compete for the best fish of the day.  One large tuna will auction off for close to $20,000 and provide sushi for the daily Fish Market's customers looking for fresh fish.  Families buy enough fresh fish for their daily meals so items are freshly prepared.

Yamatokoriyama, Nara:

     Yamatokoriyama calls itself the goldfish capital of the world.  Each year, over 80 million goldfish are raised in the town of 96,000 people.  It is their main industry and the people take great pride in sharing their love of goldfish.  The goldfish include the regular ones found in most pet stores along with some very fancy goldfish that are quite expensive. 

     To foster the goldfish industry, the city of Yamatokoriyama started a sport called goldfish scooping (click to play 15 second video) in 1994.  The idea is to see how many goldfish a person can scoop up in three minutes using a small paper paddle called a poi.  When the paper breaks on the paddle, the contestant is done.  The record this past year was 51 goldfish scooped up in three minutes.  Pictured below is a recreated contest by the third graders in the Koriyama Minami Elementary School for the FMF adult visitors.  Students used time watches to start each contestant and then recorded their scores during the competition.  When completed, they gave out awards during an assembly led by the students.

Goldfish Scooping
Poi Paddle	Example	Watchers	Practicing	Timer	Observers
Assembly	Timer	More Practice	Groups	Sample Goldfish	FMF Participants

Kingyo (goldfish) Industry of Yamatokoriyama:

     One of the main economic industries of Yamatokoriyama is raising over 80 million kingyo (goldfish) a year for sale (click to play 16 second video).  Smaller gold fish cost around eight yen (eight cents) while the larger ones can get quite expensive.  In addition to the common goldfish, there are many exotic goldfish that grow to be quite big.  The basic goldfish raising process consists of the goldfish laying eggs in May in the hikagenokatsura (grass).  In about two weeks the small goldfish hatch in the Tataki Pond where they are raised for another month in separate ponds (20,000 to a pond)  before being sorted into batches for auction.  Culture traders come to the auction room to bid on the batches of small goldfish for resale and other markets.  In addition to the kingyo, the more expensive koi are raised for resale.

Kingyo (goldfish) Industry of Yamatokoriyama
Prize Goldfish	Outside Building	Store	Backyard	Fish Ponds	Closeup
Koi Breeding	Goldfish Food	Oxygen Tanks	Waders	20,000 Goldfish	Which way?
More Ponds	Auction Box	Shipping Boxes	Look at Me!	Store Sale	Goldfish for Sale
Another Beauty	Goldfish Tanks	Goldfish	and More...	Hello!	Unusual Ones

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