To tourists at Tokyo’s Tsukiji fish market: Back away from the tuna

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For workers at the popular Tsukiji fish market, the final indignity may have been when the intoxicated British tourist licked the head of a frozen tuna. In the now-notorious incident, captured by a Japanese TV crew, an irate market official shouted in English, ‘Get out! Get out!’ as the man patted the tuna’s gills.

Every day, hundreds of sightseers gather in the predawn gloom to witness one of the most popular events on the Tokyo tourist agenda: the daily tuna auction. But some visitors misbehave (one tipsy female tourist stripped naked as her male friends hauled her around on a wooden handcart used by wholesalers), infuriating market officials so much that they recently closed Tsukiji (pronounced skee-jee) to outsiders for several weeks during the busy New Year’s buying season.

Read more of John Glionna’s story here.