JAPAN: Life is a Big Issue

. TOKYO, Japan / Japan Today / January 21, 2009 KUCHI-KOMI: Word-of-Mouth Marketing His dream is to save enough money to rent an apartment. He is 64 years old. It looks like he’s going to make it. Kazumasa Ikeda hawks a monthly magazine called The Big Issue Japan. It’s a spin-off of a magazine launched in London in 1991 as a means of giving employment to homeless people. All its street vendors are homeless. After acquiring the requisite certification from the board, a vendor is assigned a street corner and given 10 issues free of charge. The selling price is 300 yen per issue. The vendor who sells out thus earns 3,000 yen. Subsequently, the vendor pays 140 yen per issue and pockets 160 yen. Each issue profiles a vendor. Ikeda is featured in the January edition. His sales territory is in Nanba, central Osaka. There he stands, his red cap and sandwich board clearly identifying his merchandise. He’s a hearty talker, a ready conversationalist, on easy speaking terms with just about everybody who comes along. “It’s nice being here,” he says, “with all these people passing by, from high school kids to old people, and not only Japanese—foreign tourists too. Just before there was this British tourist who came over to ask directions. The Big Issue started in England, so he bought a copy. That gave me a good feeling. Then a high school kid came up and bought one. I said to him, ‘Are you sure you’ll have enough money to get home?’ He laughed. ‘Of course!’ he said. ‘Don’t worry!’” If ever a man loves his work, Ikeda seems to. He starts his day with a broom, giving his stretch of sidewalk a good sweep. “I do it three times a day. When your workplace is clean,” he explains, “it puts you in the mood to work.” And if he knows the area so well, it’s because he has prepared himself to answer anyone in need of directions. He’s been selling The Big Issue since 2005. Before that he collected aluminum cans for recycling. Selling magazines is chancier—some days you sell lots, other days hardly any—but also more of a challenge, and Ikeda, on that day in September 2005 when he happened to hear of the magazine, was in the mood to rise to a challenge. He was born in Hokkaido, the second of seven children. He graduated from junior high school in Tohoku and went to Tokyo in search of work. He worked at factories and construction sites. His income was adequate until the economy crashed in the 1990s. Suddenly jobs were scarce. Ten years ago his money ran out. He could no longer pay rent. He took to the streets. “I should have saved,” he reflects ruefully, “instead of drinking and gambling.” But he’s not the type to dwell on regrets. “My goal,” he says, “is to save enough to rent an apartment and once more have a castle of my own. Then I hope to get a regular job—anything at all.” © 2009 GPlusMedia