Fish Heads

Location:
Japan

Tsukiji Fish Market

By Shannon Bryer

When I asked the cab to take me to the Tsukiji Fish Market, I was dropped off by what looked like a parking garage, a very full and busy parking garage with little motorized carts zipping everywhere and people walking everywhere plus big trucks parked everywhere. Since I didn't know where to go I just started wandering, but you can't just wander, you have to stay out of the way of the little carts while you wander, and you have to remember to stay to the left because they drive on the left, and you have to wander fast or else you'll be run over. At least that's what it felt like. I felt like any minute I was going to be hit. All the drivers were real polite and would pause for me if they needed to but I was really surprised not to see tons of tourist road kill all over the ground. So I didn't mosey, I walked like I knew where I was going, which I didn't, and ended up in the produce section. Did you know that the biggest fish market in the world has a produce section? Well, it does, and it is quite extensive. But I kept wandering speedily to see what else there was and just when I was about to give up and write a letter to the Tokyo Fish Market Emperor to tell him he should change the name to the Tokyo Produce Market, I saw the fish. But fish is too narrow a term. I saw fish and squid and lobster and octopus and shellfish and all manner of undersea life for sale. It was so cool. It was so vast. There is no shortage of marine life for sale. There it all was in bins and boxes in water or on ice or on the cutting block. Some was all ready to sell and others were being prepared for sale. I saw some men picking up fish from one big barrel of water, slapping the still-flipping-around fish onto the cutting block, making a few swift slashes and slams with a knife and then tossing it into a nearby pile of headless fish. Very gory. Very bloody. You could easily get splattered with fish guts. I saw a whole pile of fish heads and I couldn't get that song out of my head. (Fish heads fish heads, roly poly fish heads.)

But I still wanted to see the tuna auction, and I finally found it: a massive warehouse with the floor covered in huge frozen gutted tuna. All for sale. And derned if the auction wasn't going on right then! Auctions, I should say. Every few minutes a man on a little stand would ring a bell for a full minute at least and then start yelling out stuff, numbers, perhaps, and men with these cute little hats with a card of writing attached would hold up a hand and presumably bid. So many men! So many men all wearing rubber boots and many in those cute little hats and carrying those horribly violent-looking metal hook sticks with which to drag a big humongous tuna along the ground. And the tuna each had a chunk of meat hacked almost all the way off, near where the tail should have been, to where you could flip it up and look in and examine the meat, I suppose, and people would lift up that chunk and touch the meat. One man lifted up the chunk with his pencil and peered in, and many of them had flashlights and they would shine it right into that little chunk part and ponder for a while. And I saw another man LICKING IT OFF HIS FINGERS AND CHEWING! I couldn't believe it. He was eating a sample!!! That's the other thing about it. People were real people. I thought they would just stand around looking cute but they ate fish right off the carcass and I even saw some of them drive by and spit a loogee onto the ground, and I thought, “Wow, they're not trying to sugar coat this or make it look cute for TV or anything. This is the real them.” And then I thought “what kind of weirdo prejudiced person would expect something different?” But really, I just didn't expect them to go about their business while I was there to witness it all.

A group of men were standing and sitting in the back of the tuna auction talking, I guess waiting for that one special fish they wanted to bid on, and I stood around watching and taking pictures of the action and I wanted a picture with men in the cute little hats and so I indicated this by pointing at my camera and at them and stuff and one man took the camera to take the picture and I leaned down to get in the picture with a seated man and he took his hat off and put it on my head!!!!!!! Wasn't that the sweetest thing? And so I got a picture like that and it was my first person-to-person moment with a spontaneous, kind, and thoughtful action with a real Tokyo person. Isn't that exciting?

And then I saw a sign that said "authorized personnel only" or something like that and it was in English and Japanese, and another sign told the tourists where to stand--over on the side on this piece of Astroturf. Woops. Nobody said a word or pointed to the sign the whole time I was brazenly wandering around their auction, stepping over their large frozen gutted fish and taking pictures and standing around. Everyone was so polite.

After a while I tried to find a street so I could hail a taxi. It took a long time of wandering purposefully and staying out of the way before I found a way out of this complex of warehouses and roadways and parking lots to find a likely street.

Further Information

Other helpful information: You have to go between 4 and 6 a.m. Plan to shower AFTER you get back, because you may get accidentally splashed with fish guts.

Must see/do at this place: See the auction. Buy some sashimi for breakfast.

You should avoid here: Avoid going in a large group. Two or three can stick together okay, though.