For those who spend a lot of their time between the jewellery boutiques and the haute couture stores of Tokyo’s Ginza district, a new joke suggests an easy way to tell local Japanese from the Chinese tourists.
Both types will rendezvous with their friends and family under the imposing portico of Mitsukoshi — Ginza’s most famous department store and meeting spot. The Chinese, by recent tradition, will rush inside and buy a Bottega Veneta handbag for ¥300,000 ($2,900). The Japanese will rush across the road to Doutor, a thrifty coffee shop, and buy a latte for ¥300.
It is gallows humour that reveals a Japanese luxury goods industry in outward health, but also in a state of fundamental transformation.