By Linny Folau

Matangi Tonga Online photo-journalist Linny Folau was a 2008 Sasakawa Pacific Islands Journalism Fellow. This story was written while she was in Japan on her Fellowship.

The Japanese love their tuna and nothing demonstrates their passion as well as the fish-mania that goes on every morning at the legendary Tsukiji Fish Market in Tokyo - the mother of all fish markets and a popular tourist destination.

The market sells over 400 types of marine products and on a daily basis auctions off 400 tonnes of fresh tuna and 2,300 tonnes of frozen tuna, including the highly prized blue fin, yellowfin and bigeye that range from a modest 15kg to a mammoth 476 kg.

Impressive

Per year, the market sees an auction of 430,000 tuna sold off to seven main wholesalers. And if you think the numbers of fish moved in the market is impressive, the prices are something else! Fresh tuna can cost as low as $3,000 to $4,000 yen per kilo and good premium quality can range between $5,000 to $10,000 yen per kilo.

Half awake and bleary-eyed at 4:30 a.m. to catch the auction's kick-off at 5.30 a.m., myself, my editor for the week, Floyd Takeuchi, the Publisher of Pacific Magazine, and fellow reporters from Papua New Guinea and Micronesia took a five minute taxi ride to the fish market on a mission to give an account on what is an integral part of Japan's fishing culture.

Hailing from an island nation myself, whose subsistence heavily relies on fisheries, I thought, "What's new?"

But as the taxi pulled up to the grounds it was a congestion of high-speed drivers on turrets buzzing from one corner to the other, and the quashing sound of gum boots against salty-dampened cement. This was a complete turn-around from the high-end Tokyo that I was becoming accustomed to during the first few days of my trip.

Enormous tuna

Led into a building of what looked like an old warehouse, I was amazed at how many people were there and the enormous sizes of the fresh tuna, the biggest one that morning was at 276 kg. Each fish was carefully labeled: weight, type and origin and in true Japanese tradition the tail of the tuna were cut off for wholesalers' inspection of its quality before they did their bidding. They check for the color of the flesh, its consistency and, if the tuna has not been frozen, will check inside its gills.

The tuna was lined up meticulously according to its type ranging from big eye, to blue fin. It was the same in another huge room where frost-encrusted frozen tuna was also lined up for the same bidding process.

We were guided by Yoshihiro Yamada, an elderly Public Relations Officer for Tokyo Metropolitan Government, which operates the market, and our translator Miki Fujii. Mr Yamada told us the auction starts at 5.30 a.m. and only the wholesalers were authorized buyers licensed to participate in the bidding, almost 50 percent (333) of whom were from restaurants and supermarkets.

Havoc

Skeptical about the 15-minute duration of auctioning hundreds of tuna, surely enough only minutes after kick-off the fish stock had completely dissipated. It all happened so quickly, a bell rang, ringing in the havoc of waving hands, and shouting.

"Quality is everything and in Tsukiji it is at its best, so buyers have to be quick," explained the supervisor.

The auction was an entertaining performance of strategic hand-raising as the person controlling the auction moved quickly and made lively movements to bidders' demands. Our translator explained that the rules of the auction are simple - the highest bidder wins the fish, which were brought in from various local ports in Japan, and as far away as countries such as Sri Lanka, the Maldives and Mediterranean Ocean.

Post-auction the fish is loaded onto trucks to be shipped to the next destination or on small carts and delivered to shop locations inside the market where they are then cut and prepared.

Katsuura

If Tsukiji is huge, hectic and harried, the fresh tuna auction in tiny Katsuura village, a fishing port in Wakayama Prefecture south of Tokyo known for its fresh tuna and hot springs, is a different story. In Katsuura, the auction procedures are more subtle and low keyed, if intense.

And on a full moon morning as the sun was just rising, a fishing ship arrived at the port after 5 a.m. with about 4 tonnes of fresh tuna. It wasn't a good turn-out because a good catch as explained to us by its Indonesian crew was around 10 tonnes.

An auction seller at the port, Mr Hamabata, said the number of tuna uploaded at Katsuura is declining every year due to the many challenges such as the hike in the price of fuel and the decline in the number of fishermen.

But despite these challenges in reaching a decent catch, auctions still remain an integral part of Japan's fishing culture and their tradition in general.