Not-So-Happy Bag

The New Year arrives in Japan, and with it... bunnies!

...no, I'm just kidding.

The highly advertised mascot of 2011 may be a rabbit, but sales are the real god in January.

In my opinion, sales in Japan usually leave a lot to be desired. Despite investing in enough banners and poster to make me think a place is going out of business, I usually find that the one lonely little rack marked 50-10% OFF (yes, they write it backwards, isn't that sneaky?) MAY have, at one point, had a single item that was 50% off, but all the remaining items are heavy on the 10% side. Now I have a tendency to look at sale racks like the last inch of milk at the bottom of the carton.

However, come the end of December and the beginning of January, along with a few other times of year centered around the end of a season, stores in Japan have "Lucky Bag" or "Happy Bag" sales. They cram a variety of unsold items into an opaque shopping bag, tape it closed, and sell it for a discounted price. You have no idea what you'll get... but it's on sale!

Seems kind of crazy, right? Who would pay any amount of money, let alone $60 to $160 for a glorified crapshoot? Well, the answer is, a lot of people. More specifically,

Me.

and Chingyi, of course, my partner in consumer-insanity.

Although initially overcome with uncertainty, we finally settled on buying matching bags at Arrow, a store we both love in the local AEON mall. We decided that for our one and only "happy bag" indulgence, we would go all out and get large size bags. While neither of us set our expectations too high for the results of this experience, neither could we quite contain our excitement at the prospect of our own little mystery adventure, for which we had the privilege of paying $120 each.

After putting in our orders at the end of December, we returned yesterday to pick up our "Happy Bags". On the way to the mall, I noticed others that had also indulged in the yearly consumer tradition, primarily one girl who had a very large Hello Kitty shopping bag hanging from her shoulder. Inside the mall, many of the stores had signs advertising "Happy Bag" sales and pick-ups. We raced to Arrow with matching excitement and trepidation.

The bag itself was a nice satin zip-up affair, big and hefty, which we wore proudly on our shoulders. We immediately went to the food court to settle in for dinner and our own Christmas in January. One by one we took turns blindly taking one item at a time out of our respective bags, until the bags were empty.

The result? As sad as it was predictable:

A spectacular failure!!!

Almost musingly so. Almost, if so much (albeit misguided) anticipation hadn't been wrapped up in it. Still, it was hard not to find amusement in the extreme level of failure. Each item carefully unwrapped was like a Christmas present from a distant aunt - an embroidered-cat-pillows kind of aunt - and all you can do is smile ruefully and shake your head, oohing and ahhing over the smallest details in dictionary-style depiction of "make the best of it". When we were finished and still peering into the bottom of our bags hopefully, the bag itself became a sort of consolation prize. Seventy-two inches of nylon gold.

Two points to Chingyi and Lindsay. Just a couple o' girls with bags full of cat pillow.

Cheers,

consumed-consumer Baer