David Jolly of the New York Times reported last week: "When the Pacific bluefin does gain significant attention, it is often, paradoxically, as a commodity fetish. As my NYT colleague in Tokyo, Mr. Martin Fackler reported, a sushi chain owner CLAIMED TO HAVE ALLEGEDLY paid nearly US$1.8 million for a bluefin, a record, at an auction on Saturday in Tokyo. This fee was double the fee the same man "paid" in 20012 and double the fee paid in 2011. The "fake yarase auction" fee seems to double every year, and so next January 2014 the price should hit US$3.5 million for one solid frozen tuna.
Question for longtime Japan experts of the media there: is this "auction" a good example of fake PR news masquerating as what the Japanese call "yarase" and fooling the public in Jpan into thinking this NEWS was really true? Or do most Japanese people realize this is annual new Year's YARASE and don't care one bit? Thing is that this news story gets picked up by AP office in Tokyo and NYT office in Tokyo and CNN too and gets bamed to the oustide world, outside Japan, in other words, the Lands of the Setting Sun, and the West people beleive it is true news.
But I believe it is fake yarase news and that in fact NO MONEY CHANGED hands, Mr Kimura is part of the yarase action, and even Japanese people know this as the fake auction it is......first, go look up YARASE, then if you know or can guess, dish: was this true fee or fake? and if true, where did the 1.8 million USD go? I.e, how much did Kimura actually PAY OUT, and who got the money? The fisherman who caught the Tuna, what percent? the Tskyji fish market orrg, what percent? the PR people who arranged the annaul auctiom, what percent? My guess is that Kimura is the Kabuki Noh actor on this PR set up and the Western world falls for it every year, whiole the local Japanmese know it as yarase and do not evn bat an eye or a fish fin!
NYT: "The staggering amounts paid at the annual New Year’s auctions have far more to do with prestige than actual market price – but the fact that the absolute number keeps going up is consistent with the increasingly scarcity of the resource."
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/06/world ... .html?_r=0