Photo/Illutration Asagaya Pearl Center is a roofed shopping street. About 800 meters long, it starts outside the South Exit of JR Asagaya Station. (Photo by Lisa Vogt)

Asagaya Pearl Center? I imagined the kind of place where tour buses stop, and passengers are herded inside a nondescript square building where a bunch of sales representatives stand behind glass showcases hawking pearls and jewelry of questionable quality to the captive audience.

At the end of their pitch, they would take out a dark, velvet-covered box with a white, silk-like interior and show the customer how classy the item will look when packaged.

But, no.

Right across from JR Asagaya Station is a covered "shotengai" shopping arcade called Asagaya Pearl Center. “Attakai koe, musubi masu,” read many signs around the area. Warm voices make connections?

I find it helpful that Asagaya, the station, is written with the small “ke” after the “sa” in Asa-ga-ya. Otherwise, I’d assume the place was Asaya or maybe even Asatani. Addresses, though, do not include this extra katakana. I can think of several names like this.

I applaud the decision makers who made reading place names easier by adding that character.

How did Pearl Center, the name, come about? There used to be a Gorudo-gai (Gold Street) and a Daiya-gai (Diamond Street) nearby, which were both swallowed by the JR East Urban Development Corp.’s Beans shopping center group (there are 12 Beans connected to JR East stations in the Kanto area).

Naturally, Pearl would follow because “Kin, gin, pearl, present!” Hmm? You have to be of a particular generation to understand, so ask an old-timer nearby--he or she will smile and sing the old commercial ditty for you.

The street the shopping arcade is on is ancient. Eight hundred years ago, it was a Kamakura Kaido, a common name for all roads leading to the military capital from every direction. In the Edo Period (1603-1867), it was a 20-kilometer pilgrimage route from Nukui Shrine in Koganei to Myohoji in Suginami.

In 1922, the Sobu streetcar line began. After the Great Kanto Earthquake, which occurred the following year, many creative types such as Osamu Dazai and Akiko Yosano moved from the rubble to the Asagaya area and contributed to its attractiveness.

After World War II, the locals got together and decided to rebuild Asagaya. They outlined a city plan and proudly registered Tokyo’s first pedestrian-only shopping street, “Hokosha Tengoku Dai Ichi-go.” The public submitted proposals for its name and Pearl Center was selected. The arcade was covered in 1962.

It has the right mix of local and chain stores, and true to its signage, warm voices buzz, stringing together buyers and sellers like a pearl necklace.

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This article by Lisa Vogt, a Washington-born and Tokyo-based photographer, originally appeared in the Dec. 6 issue of Asahi Weekly. It is part of the series "Lisa’s In and Around Tokyo," which depicts the capital and its surroundings through the perspective of the author, a professor at Meiji University.

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