Aug.
1999, Xene #11
Cash from Trash - There's gold
in that gomi
by William Kennedy
Garbage.
Refuse. Gomi. Whatever you may call it, any foreigner
who has been in Japan long enough to shake the jet
lag can be expected to have an opinion about waste
in this country. Whatever these opinions may be, most
foreigners -- and more Japanese than you might expect
-- can also be sure to have a few items at home that
have been snatched up in late-night "gomi station"
raids.
One Sapporo resident, however, has taken things a
step further, proving that one man's trash is another's
cash.
In eight years, Michael Gordon has created a healthy
business selling discarded merchandise from Japan
around the world. He has sold everything from radios
to tires to cars, to as far away as the United Kingdom.
As a result, he will leave Japan next year with a
bank account and experiences much different than those
of the average departing foreigner.
It is somehow natural that Gordon should have a rich,
varied background to match his business. The 50-year-old
Australian speaks in a tough-to-place accent that
seems to roam the globe over the course of a conversation.
Though born and raised in Australia, he spent most
of his adult life -- 23 years -- in the United States,
in Philadelphia, and only managed to return to Oz
at the age of 35. The result is an accent that is
sometimes Melbourne, sometimes Philly, depending on
the subject at hand.
Something of a jack of all trades, his jobs back home
included dynamiting in the gold fields of Western
Australia, an occupation he describes as being little
more than a glamorized laborer. In a bit of foreshadowing,
just before leaving for Japan he spent some time fixing
and reselling used washing machines. Though it is
tempting to imagine that this prepared him for his
future business in gomi, he insists that it was just
a one-off way to make ends meet.
His
customers included a young couple who had just returned
to Australia after a two-year stay in Japan. They
convinced him to forego Tokyo for Sapporo. "They
told me, 'If you don't have any money and you don't
know anybody and you don't have a job lined up, you
should head to Sapporo.' And I thought, 'Hey, that's
me.'"
After arriving in Sapporo, the progression from full-time
English teacher to gomi entrepreneur came about almost
by accident. It was, says Gordon, a simple case of
supply meeting demand meeting opportunity. The supply
could be readily found in any of the city's teeming
gomi stations, particularly on the days immediately
preceding sodai gomi (bulky trash) pickup day. Prior
to the City of Sapporo's establishment two years ago
of a ticket system for bulky refuse, the days leading
up to the monthly sodai gomi day saw street corners
taking on the appearance of outdoor appliance warehouses.
With a seemingly inexhaustible supply, the next step
was finding the demand. A stint in the merchant marine
had left Gordon with a love of ports and the atmosphere
around them. After several months in Sapporo, he paid
a visit to Otaru, Hokkaido's major port, and there
stumbled across the demand.
Strolling through the port, he came across a large
collection of weather-beaten ships that appeared to
have seen better days.
"Somehow people transported things in these ships,"
he says. "It turned out to be the Russian fishing
fleet."
Despite having spent so many years in Cold-War America,
Gordon had actually always had he calls a soft spot
for Russians. His parents were Polish Jews and when
Poland was split between Germany and the Soviet Union
in 1939, they found themselves in the USSR. Spending
World War II under Stalin rather than Hitler saved
their lives.
Gordon remembers being in the throes of culture shock
and was eager to meet other foreigners. "The
Russians helped soften the bumps of being in Japan,"
he says.
The purchase of a small truck a few months later brought
everything together. "Here was the gomi, the
truck and the Russians," he says. He loaded up
his truck with appliances, headed out to Otaru and
was an immediate hit among the Russian sailors.
"You drive out there (to the port) in a truck
full of stuff and they knew right away you weren't
sightseeing," he says. The first word he learned
in Russian was "Skolka", which means, "How
much?"
Pretty
soon, he had a thriving side business, with his Russian
customers happily taking as much as he could provide.
The going rates included \2,000 to \3,000 for a washing
machine, \3,000 to \5,000 for a stereo and \3,000
to \8,000 for a refrigerator.
Though Gordon may have been selling gomi, it wasn't
trash. Many of the appliances he had were trade-ins
discarded by electronics stores and he took pains
to ensure that everything was in working order. While
living in his first apartment in Sapporo, he used
to run an extension cord out of his third-story window
down to where he had the truck parked beside the building,
full of appliances waiting to be tested.
"I often wondered what people were thinking,
this cord running down the wall and there I was with
all these refrigerators and stereos," he says.
When the business was in full swing, he wound up renting
storage space in Teine.
The cars came later. Right from the beginning, the
sailors would ask Gordon why he didn't have any cars
for sale and, after two and a half years of steadily
building his gomi business, he was, in his words,
"sucked into the car vortex."
From purchasing through shipping and finally sales,
the used auto business required an enormous time commitment,
and he soon found himself choosing cars over gomi.
Like the appliances, the cars Gordon sold were trade
ins. Many were misfits: Toyotas which had found their
way onto Nissan lots and vice-versa. As with the appliances,
he had access to quality merchandise, thanks to the
traditional Japanese preference for new over old.
He also benefited from Japan's labyrinthian car inspection
system, which actually manages to make buying a new
car cost-effective.
"This country is the world's largest repository
of good used cars, especially for cars that are six
to 12 years old," he says.
Russia's economic woes forced him to find new markets.
Car lots in Vladivostok, he says, are full of cars
and the current buyer's market there allows canny
shoppers to strike their own deals in rubles, rather
than yen or American dollars. Instead, Gordon now
ships cars to Australian, New Zealand and even the
United Kingdom. He usually sends out six to eight
cars a month, and the business hinges on the differing
vehicle depreciation rates in Japan and elsewhere.
After eight years in Japan, Gordon is looking to return
to Melbourne next spring with his wife, Kyoko. He
plans to remain in the car business, however, and
will concentrate on selling the cars that his agents
will continue to buy for him here in Sapporo.
Despite the changes in his business, Gordon still
has a particular fondness for his original customers,
the Russian sailors in Otaru. He keeps a book listing
some 70 different Russian ships, with the names of
people he's dealt with on each vessel.
"It soon started to be a social thing as well
as business," he says, remembering the warm hospitality
he has enjoyed on the ships.
A sailor's life is not easy, and Gordon quietly speaks
of the Russians he knows who have died, sometimes
in a ship sinking only weeks after he has seen them,
other times through accident or misadventure. He has
seen friends in drunken violent fights with one another
and others slowly killing themselves through alcohol.
Many foreigners are very vocal in their criticisms
of waste in Japan and the preference for new things
which leads to a massive turnover. Gordon, however,
prefers to look at the bigger picture. He points out
that constant dumping of goods for newer items helps
drive Japan's consumer goods industry. The money that
is generated in Japan is then used to purchase other
goods, including such things as soy beans from America
and wool from Australia.
"The so-called wasteful habits of the Japanese
are supporting agriculture and industry around the
world," he says.
In the mean time, gomi remains a fact in Japan and
as long as it does, there will be people like Michael
Gordon proving the value to be found in what is not
wanted.
