Yongfook is a web producer and usability consultant based in Tokyo

If ever you needed justification that economies of scale truly exist, the marvel that is the Japanese hyaku-en shop serves that very purpose - if nothing else.

A hyaku-en (100 yen) shop is a type of shop that sells everything at 100 yen a piece. It would be quite accurate to say that hyaku-en shops sell both everything and nothing. Invariably, large sections of most hyaku-en shops are devoted to Tupperware of various shapes and sizes, hello kitty stationary and general household stuff that other shops cant be bothered to stock. On your first visit to a hyaku-en shop you will wander around in amazement, thinking “why would I ever need any of this stuff”. All this changes on your subsequent visits. After a while, you enter a transcendent, nirvana-like state of consciousness, dragging your feet slowly around the shop, placing items in your basket with indiscriminate zeal - rationalisation lying not with your needs as a consumer, but merely the fact that “Its just 100 yen. Its just 100 yen”.

As the repetitive, infinitely-looped 10-second jingle seeps out of the shop speakers and into your mind, you pick up piece of crap after piece of crap, only to look down at the horrific melee of random detritus that has found its way into your basket - a lunchbox with a picture of a bee, some plates too small to put anything on, a pen holder, a holder for the pen holder, a fake pot plant, some shoes, room spray, dried fish and a santa claus costume.

And your own brain.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 20th, 2002 at 1:31 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.