Bakugai – Explosive Shopping
We’ve got a new term in Japan – bakugai, which is composed of the Chinese characters for explosion – reading baku in Japanese, and “to buy”. Since explosive shopping sounds better than explosion shopping, let me use the former term.
What’s bakugai? There is a long article in wikipedia – it’s only available in Japanese and Korean languages though. And these are some photos Google gives you when you google the characters 爆買い。
Explosive shopping refers to mostly, but not exclusively, Chinese people, who come to Japan to shop till they drop. The term is around since 2014 it seems, though I got aware of it only recently. Well off Chinese fly to Japan and go on a shopping spree to get their hands on Japanese high quality goods, which are either not available in China or are actually more expensive there, since they are being imported. Exchange rates of course also have their part in this business. Rice cookers seem to be among the most popular things to buy, but also high tech Japanese toilet seats (I kid you not). Then of course a wide range of electronics. Not to forget cosmetics though, which are in strong demand too.
I live in the greater Tokyo area for around 16 years now and I’m working in the heart of Tokyo, at Shibuya, for 13 out of those, for a good ten years I am going nearly every Friday to Ikebukuro for music lessons (at first drums, then vocals, now piano) at a Yamaha music school. In Shibuya, but especially in Ikebukuro the number of Chinese people has dramatically increased.Ten years ago I never ever heard a word of Mandarin in Ikebukuro, now at more or less every corner.
I recently saw a Japanese news report that department stores are steadily loosing customers, mostly to online shopping. Only convenience stores still enjoy growth here. And at least in Tokyo I believe that those department stores mostly survive thanks to Chinese shopping tourists.
In the 90ties, when I was in Japan for the first time, prices were ridiculously high, not anymore, it’s cheaper here nowadays than in Singapore or London and around the same level as Germany, whilst going out eating in Germany has become more expensive than in Japan.
In the BBC they had an article this week that the Drumpf becoming US president is among the top ten global risks. If you look at the list though, the number one threat is that the Chinese economy tumbles. Yep, if those Chinese shopping tourists aren’t coming anymore… although that would be the least of Japan’s worries concerning economic woes in case of the Chinese market collapsing… The politicians might bicker about never heard of before islands in the Pacific, but the Japanese tourist bureau announces happily record numbers of foreign visitors who find their way to our lovely islands here, most of them Chinese 
