Buying All the Beautiful Koi

Nogami Sansei Kohaku

Is it true that women are treated less than equal to men in Japan?  It was my time to find out.  After years of dreaming about going to Japan to see the world’s most impressive Koi, I was off to Niigata last week with my husband, Russell.  We planned to meet our friend Ben Plonski from Laguna Koi Ponds, along with another retailer and a hobbyist.  We all had visions of Gosanke dancing in our heads and were eager to see Koi that we knew would never be seen in America.  We were also ready to ‘buy all the good fish’ (an impossible task).

I didn’t know what was in store for me.  I am accustomed to conducting business equally with men, and was heading for Japan, where I had often been told by many Koi-people that I would not be considered a serious buyer or have the same authority as my husband.  But, I was heading to ‘Koi-Mecca’ and I felt that I would be impervious to any issues that might arise from being a businesswoman in Japan.

Mud Ponds in Niigata

It was with light hearts and sleepy brains that we arrived at Narita Airport and immediately got lost, swabbed with that queasy, upside-down feeling of landing in a time-zone 16 hours ahead of what was normal for us.  After playing ‘find the needle in the haystack’ (a.k.a. ‘where the hell are the people I’m meeting’), bouncing back and forth between terminals, we eventually met up with the rest of our party and took the train to Nagaoka, in the Niigata Prefecture, where Mr. Norihiro Nagata met us.

Mr. Nagata has been selling and breeding Koi in Fukuoka, Japan for 35 years, and is a most well respected member of Shinkokai, the breeders and sellers association, in Japan.  He is very direct and friendly, has a great sense of humor, and is one of the most genuinely nice people I’ve ever met.  I do not exaggerate when I convey that every person we saw that was acquainted with Mr. Nagata was pleased to see him.  Best of all, he treated me just as kindly and professionally as he treated everyone else.

We stayed in a hotel in Ojiya, in a room where Russell (a mere 6’5”) and I constantly plowed into each other.  We met up with our group each morning and headed out for day, not coming back to the hotel until late each evening.  We saw more beautiful Koi than I have the ability to give justice to in written word.  We also saw many the Koi demi-monde that we had bumped into so often in our Koi travels around the US and Europe.

Our group’s first day was spent in the company of Art and Nicole Lembke, who were also traveling with Mr. Nagata.  We saw Mr. Kato; Mr. Sakai; we ran into Peter (‘Waddy’) Waddington, whom we had become acquainted with in the last few years at the Dutch Koi Show; we saw Roland and Yoko de Aenlle of Toyoma Koi; Ray Able; Eldon Alias; Mark Bodicott; Jack Chang; Kevin Pham; and a near-busload of Dutch and Belgian buyers, to name a just a few.

Peter Waddington and Kari Peters

Strangely, through all of the overwhelmingly glorious Koi and overwhelming people, I found myself turning quiet and introspective in this culture so different from my own.  I am usually socially competent, but in Japan I was concerned about offending people, and was not sure how to handle the financial end of things.  In terms of choosing Koi, Russell has a better ‘eye’ than I do, but I can pick decent fish and I had intended to be involved in some of the choosing and purchasing.  My question was ‘how would I be received as a buyer in this society?’

The art of buying Koi in Japan is an intricate ballet of movements and words.  The process of the private conversations between the breeders, brokers and buyers, usually several times for each transaction, took an amazingly long time.  We were fortunate to have Mr. Nagata as our broker as he is a very professional negotiator.  When I thought about giving my input on financial matters, I had no reason to believe that Nagata-san would disregard what I had to say.  He had treated me very nicely, no differently than anyone else, and I’m sure he would have respected whatever input I had.  But I surprised myself by immediately straying toward the fringes of everything involving business and discussing things privately with Russell – not directly with Mr. Nagata.  This is an unusual way for me to behave where my business is concerned.  And as I am former opera singer who enjoys being ‘center-stage’, I usually look forward to seizing the moment, but not this time. 

Mr. Nagata (and Ben Plonski’s legs!)

I started holding back when I noticed that some of the Japanese breeders we met wouldn’t glance in my direction after my initial introduction.  It seemed they expected Russell to make all of the decisions.  I was rarely treated rudely (there were only a few who would not even acknowledge my presence), and I met some of the most genuinely nice people ever to cross my path. In fact, most of the Breeders were extremely nice to me.   But I always felt out of sync.  Small things bothered me: the initial lack of acknowledgement by some of the breeders; the realization that I was usually the only woman in the vicinity; and having a US buyer, who usually treated me as an equal, barely acknowledge my presence while treating my husband in his usual gregarious manor.  I was definitely out of my element.

During one of the times that we ran into Roland and Yoko from Toyoma Koi, I asked Yoko, who was born and raised in Japan, about the Japanese culture.  She confirmed my understanding that it is difficult being a businesswoman in Japan.  I told her that at times it was very frustrating for me, and it helped me to know that it was not my imagination or insecurity.  It really is different there, and it is much easier to fall into the expected compliance than it was to try to gain acceptance as a buyer, not just the wife of one.

I noticed a camaraderie between many of the men there that was most likely formed by years of friendship or acquaintance and a love of Nishikigoi.  It was fascinating to watch, even though I did not speak the language.  I felt more interested in observing than in participating.  Usually I was the only woman in the midst of things.  Normally I like those odds, but not always. 

Ben Plonski and Mr. Nagata at Shinkokai Auction

My favorite moments were when we were in the company of Mr. Toshiuke Sakai, famous for his Matsunosuke Sanke.  He was very charming, friendly, and funny, and he gifted us with his joie de vivre.  Because of his acquaintance with the hobbyist we were traveling with, Mr. Sakai invited our entire group to an incredible dinner at a restaurant in Nagaoka.  Our glasses of beer and sake were never empty, and we all had the times of our life.  The following day, Mr. Sakai honored us by showing us his best Koi – a sansei (3 year old) Sanke that he said was the best he’s had in the last five years.  He would keep this Koi in his mud ponds for 2 more years before it went to its buyer, never to leave Japan.  To my great pleasure he announced to all that he was naming the Koi ‘Kari’!  Later, when asked how often Mr. Nagata had seen a Koi of this quality, he told us that there were less than 10 in the last thirty-five years.  What an honor it was for me.  (It occurred to me that he might simply have been flirting, but I prefer to believe that the beloved Sanke would forever bare my name.)

Russell Peters, Toshiuke Sakai, Sam Afram, Kari Peters, and Mr. Nagata

 We visited breeders whose Koi we had sold or seen for many years:  Matsunosuke; Hosokai; Nogami; Hoshikin; Igarashi; Torazo; Marusada; Marudo; and Dainichi.  We bought more Koi than we expected to, and our week flew by so quickly that before we knew it, it was time to come back to San Francisco.  We were pleased with the selection of Koi available to us, and we daydream about the next time we go to Japan.  I realized that I was the original source of my own alienation, and that need not have happened to the extent that I let it.  Next time I’m there, I’ll have a go at buying all the beautiful Koi…  In the meantime, I’ll think about the Matsunosuke Sanke named ‘Kari’.

Matsunosuke Sanke named ‘Kari’

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