Underhanded Secondhand

I was a dedicated secondhand shopper when I was still in America. Goodwill was pretty much my only option, but I also received plenty of hand-me-downs from neighbors, teachers and friends. I remember being very excited the first time my friend, Annina, gave me a bag of her clothes. I thought, "She's one of the best dressed girls in my class, so now I'll be just like her!" I wore one yellow shirt covered in flowers for years before I accidentally melted it with the flatiron.

Secondhand stores in Japan are big business. You can find everything from clothes to kitchen supplies to snowboards, guitars, games, consoles, cameras, bikes, couches, lamps, Hermes, Dulce and Gabbana, Louis Vuitton, Prada, and more, including those crazy things you find nowhere but Japan like takoyaki grills, sake cups, face massagers and thousands of boxed gift blankets.

I'm not kidding: every store has a whole section for these boxes of blankets that look like something from Great Aunt Bertie's nursing home. Who buys these things? Who receives them? Nobody uses them because they all end up at Second Street Recycle Store!

As fun as it is to shop in these jumble stores, it's the weirdest kind of abusive relationship. It's addictive, easy, and you get something out of it, but when you try to contribute, for some reason you get your ass handed to you. Unless you have something of legitimate value (basically platinum plated Hermes tea cups or diamond encrusted Prada heels) you're going to get screwed if you try to sell anything to them. Even Jimi Hendrix's guitar would get you a piddling 200 yen...if they have a special campaign where they're looking for rock legends' instruments.

I don't have nice things. I just don't. I don't have a need for them. But I'm leaving Japan soon and I'm trying to purge my apartment of things I know I won't be taking with me (ie winter coats, summer shoes, my standing fan, my collection of "Death Note" manga, etc.) and decided today I'd try and make a few hundred yen.

Literally, that's what I made. The "Death Note" series got me 100 yen. The rest made me about 400 yen. Yippee.