When I was growing up, my mother loved to drag my sister and I to yard and garage sales as well as Goodwill so that she could pick up second-hand crap to clutter our home. One thing I remember was that most of that stuff looked pretty well-used, and sometimes a bit grubby. In Japan, my experiences with secondhand goods has been markedly different. Japanese people are renowned for two things when it comes to their possessions. One is buying new things frequently so they often get rid of relatively new items on a regular basis and the other is taking good care of the things they have. When secondhand items are on offer at "recycle" shops, about 80% of them are in what appears to be in "as new" condition (many in original boxes). Another 18% are so lightly worn as to look as good as new.
I'll miss the high quality of secondhand goods in Japan.
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