There are about six of these that I know of in Cebu and one in Lapulapu City. These are shops that bring in used household items from Japan, the biggest of these usually antique “tansu” (merchants chest) furniture while the tiniest are what the Japanese call “engimono”, hand-made lucky charms.
I am referring to Japanese surplus goods shops that over the last five years have enthralled a number of Cebuanos from all walks of life, from those that drive high-end SUVs to ordinary commuters out for a bargain and a surprise.
My biggest catch so far is a two-piece “tansu” chest made of kiri (Paulownia) wood, tinted dark-brown that literally makes music: one of its drawers has a section of a harmonica-like gadget tucked at the end producing music whenever one opens or closes it.
This fine piece of furniture, with inner drawers to carefully hold kimonos in place, which cost me Three Thousand Pesos (P3,000), comprises two chests complete with handles.
A quick search on the Internet revealed some tantalizing facts: chests like this date to the Taisho period, between the 1890s to the 1920s and normally sell for about a thousand US dollars. I bought this at Mahalo Japanese Surplus Shop in Marigondon.
I bought another smaller “tansu” chest last December at Sakura-saku on Hernan Cortes for almost the same sum. That was my first dive into these second-hand shops. And life has not been the same since. It’s like combining picking and archaeology at the same time, complete with all the thrill and excitement that goes with making new discoveries. The same is true for Dave Latonio, a finance officer in a huge international conglomerate whose Asia-Pacific headquarters is based in Cebu.
I managed to infect Dave with the Jap-hop bug and he now spends weekends going through these shops, many of which have at least a container van full of items from Japan each month. In one of these, Kiku Trading, which also has a huge shop in California, a kind of Tuesday club has formed among a dedicated group of Cebuanos—dedicated, that is, going to this air conditioned shop along A.C. Cortes Avenue in Mandaue, because on that day each week, they unpack boxes and boxes of goods carefully selected by the Japanese owner for the more sophisticated and choosy clientele.
Kiku is almost at par with A Nihon Mono, another Japanese surplus shop on Hernan Cortes Street in Mandaue. This one is probably the crown jewel of all these shops as it even has genuine but pricey second-hand Louis Vuittons. Its air-conditioned two-story shop is just the icing on the cake. Wait till you are ushered to the Nihon Mono Warehouse and be enthralled at the attention to detail that is devoted to all kinds of items: from antique Samurai yoroi armors and “katana” swords to Lalique glasses, and from Karatsu dishes to extremely expensive Noritake ceramic wares, complete with original boxes. On one weekend, we espied four middle-aged women rummaging through plastic bags full of costume jewelry and watches. Apparently, there are items that may often be mislabeled and are in fact made of real gold. But be warned: this shop is not for the cursory buyer or the curious shopper. One needs deep pockets here.
At Y&T Trading on the road from the Mandaue Coliseum to Metro Pacific Mall in Ibabao, all formalities fly out the window as one is allowed to literally rummage through boxes and boxes full of decorative items, ceramics, and “mingei,” traditional Japanese craftworks. It was here at Y&T that I bought a marvelous collection of kokeshi dolls, many of them dating to the 1940s and before World War II. I also bought here a number of “hinamatsuri” dolls. Both are for a planned exhibition at the University of San Carlos Museum. But the beautiful and antique emperor and empress “hinamatsuris” and huge “koinobori” kites that I will also put on exhibition soon all come from a surprise pick at Sakura-saku, run by a Japanese gentleman by the name of Tomoharu.
There are two more shops I failed to mention: Ebisuya, located very near the St. Joseph Church of Mandaue City and another one called Tomoyama, if my memory serves me right, located near Pier 3. It was at these shops that I bought a huge number of engimonos, so-called lucky charms usually sold at temples in Kyoto and Tokyo, among other places in Japan.
It was at Ebisuya that Dave finally bought his first show cabinet, to showcase his fine collection of Japanese porcelain and glassware. Although well traveled, having spent months and months of training and finance reporting for this firm in Canada, Germany, the United States and France, Dave has, alas, never been to Japan since the company he works for has no exposure there yet.
Our forays into these shops has now intrigued Dave so much that he now plans to spend his next vacation in Japan. But for the moment, he, like others, never tires of hopping from one surplus shop to another. You should too!