The problem with an international company

When we first got here, Chrys was telling me that Wal-Mart was trying to get into the Japanese market. He had learned that apparently they had to buy an existing company to move in. The government had blocked them from moving themselves in as Wal-Mart and putting up mega stores.

After a couple of trips to the local Seiyu, I started wondering if what he had heard/read was older. I recognized the Great Value brand on a few things there and they had lots of signs with smileys and "Rollback". We reasoned that it wasn't just Wal-Mart that did that, but I was very suspicious. Chrys asked around at work, I guess, and found out that Wal-Mart did, indeed, own Seiyu.

The rest of the background - Easter isn't a huge holiday in Japan. It translates simply as resurrection day and is a major religious holiday, but no celebration takes over the stores. There are no egg hunts, no bunny candies, no special displays at any of my regular haunts.

Today I dropped by Seiyu. Apparently Wal-Mart hasn't fully researched the Japanese culture. They had Easter stuff. Granted, it wasn't the overwhelming aisles that greeted me in the US, but they had more than anyone else. Bunny dolls, cheap Easter themed toys, baskets, stuffed animals (ducks, lambs, etc) - some said Happy Easter; some said Welcome Spring. The Welcome Spring are appropriate here as Spring Day (3/21) was a national holiday. All of this stuff is now 50% off. They have TONS of it. It left me hoping that I would find Cadbury eggs when I went down to the grocery store, but I was disappointed. Alas, we will get no Easter candy this year. Oh well...better for our waists, I'm sure.