题图。

Japan, collectively, has amassed a quite stupendous amount of stuff over the years. Very nice stuff, much of it; gleaming with brand names and in pristine condition. 
多年来，日本全国已积攒了数量惊人的物品。其中许多是品质优良的珍藏，闪耀着品牌的光泽且保存完好。

At current second-hand market prices, says a new report, Japan’s “hidden asset” in terms of national reserves of things — defined as potentially resellable household obxts that have lain unused for over a year — is worth around $580bn.
一份最新报告指出，按照当前二手市场价格计算，日本以“闲置物品”形式存在的“隐性资产”——即闲置超过一年且具有潜在转售价值的家庭物品——总价值约达5800亿美元。

The dust-gathering contents of Japan’s cupboards, attics and garages, by that estimate, are worth roughly the same as the combined market capitalisation of the country’s most globally known corporate names: Toyota, Sony and SoftBank. 
据估算，日本橱柜、阁楼和车库中那些积灰的物品，其总价值大致相当于该国全球最知名企业丰田、索尼和软银的市值总和。

That’s an impressive stash, equivalent to roughly $4,600 for every person in Japan. Researchers prefer to call this stuff non-financial “lifestyle assets”: a portfolio not just of domestic items you don’t need and could in theory monetise, but items you pretend you need and are using but will almost certainly admit you aren’t using and do not need at some unspecified time in the future. 
这笔资产储备令人惊叹，相当于每位日本国民持有约4600美元。研究者更倾向于将这些物品称为非金融类“生活方式资产”：它们不仅包括理论上可以变现的闲置家用品，还涵盖那些你自认为需要且在使用、但终将在未来某个时刻承认既未使用也无必要的物品。

There are some caveats around how the mammoth $580bn price tag was placed on the stuff mountain, about a third of which is “fashion goods” and a fifth “hobbies and leisure”. The joint research was conducted by a corporate think-tank, the NLI Research Institute, and Mercari, Japan’s largest online marketplace for the buying and selling of used goods. The platform’s pricing averages were used to extrapolate from a survey of 2,400 people aged 10-69. 
关于如何为这座价值5800亿美元的庞大物品之山贴上价格标签，存在一些注意事项。其中约三分之一是“时尚商品”，五分之一是“爱好与休闲用品”。这项联合研究由企业智库NLI研究所和日本最大的二手商品在线交易平台Mercari（一般称“煤炉”）共同开展。研究基于对2400名10至69岁人群的调查，并利用该平台的平均价格数据进行推算。

The fact that around 23 per cent of Japanese are aged over 70 cuts quite an important group of lifestyle asset hoarders out of the calculation, particularly since that generation were, by all accounts, voracious hoarders. Actuarial tables of life expectancy also suggest their stuff may come up for sale more rapidly than anyone else’s. Mercari, meanwhile, is already doing staggeringly brisk business, and will do even more if Japan, in its advancing age and declining sense of wealth, decides to flog off the national stuff reserves on a grand scale.
约23%的日本人口年龄超过70岁，这一事实将相当重要的生活方式资产囤积群体排除在计算之外，尤其因为普遍认为这一代人曾是囤积欲望极强的群体。寿命精算表也表明，他们的物品可能比任何其他群体的物品更快进入流通市场。与此同时，Mercari的业务已经异常火爆，如果日本随着社会老龄化加剧和财富感下降，决定大规模抛售国民物品储备，其业务量还将进一步增长。

However, the intriguing bit is not the $580bn figure itself, but the way in which it highlights the specific set of circumstances of Japan’s used goods market, and what the rest of the world might learn (and gain) as Japanese households begin a mass experiment in becoming more proactive asset managers of what’s at the back of the cupboard.
然而，最引人深思的并非5800亿美元这个数字本身，而在于它如何凸显日本二手商品市场的特殊环境，以及当日本家庭开始大规模尝试更积极地管理橱柜深处资产时，世界其他地区可能从中学习（并获益）的经验。

The market, some argue, is now large enough to make that experiment viable. Over the past few years, Japan has become a uniquely attractive global magnet for buyers of second-hand goods — from Hermès bags, Rolexes and limited edition Nike Airs to Pokémon trading cards, vintage video games, golf clubs, fishing rods and rare Licca dolls. An increasingly powerful appeal for the tens of millions of visitors the country now draws annually is not just the traditional shopping, but the vibrant, over-the-counter trade in used items. These chattels have been assembled by a once wealthy nation, currently finding its household finances rather strained and looking for ways to cash in on the purchases made in more prosperous times.
有观点认为，当前市场规模已足以支撑这场实验的可行性。过去几年间，日本已成为全球二手商品买家眼中独具魅力的磁石——从爱马仕包、劳力士手表和限量版耐克气垫鞋，到宝可梦卡牌、复古电子游戏、高尔夫球杆、钓鱼竿以及稀有的丽佳娃娃。如今每年吸引数千万访客的强大吸引力，不仅在于传统购物体验，更在于活跃的线下二手商品交易。这些动产由曾经富裕的国度汇聚而成，当前其家庭财政正面临相当压力，人们正寻求将繁荣时期购置的物品变现的途径。

Several factors have played a key role in this explosion — which has strong echoes of the way in which global private equity firms have grown increasingly obsessed with the idea of buying second hand from the undervalued depths of corporate Japan. The first is that Japan, in the main, is pretty careful with its stuff: people keep things in good condition (usually with the boxes and the original sales certificates), and so the quality of what goes on sale is high and has retained its value. 
多重因素在这场爆发式增长中扮演了关键角色——这与全球私募股权公司日益痴迷于从日本企业被低估的资产深处淘金的模式形成强烈共鸣。首要因素是日本民众普遍对物品极为爱护：人们习惯将物品保存完好（通常连同包装盒和原始销售凭证），因此上市商品品质优良且保值性高。

Second, Japan bought the real thing in the first place: the used goods that go on sale are reliably not counterfeit, which relieves some of the stress of dipping in. Third, and closely related, is that Japan was always a huge and exciting market when the goods were new: quite apart from everything it produced itself, international brands have been selling their top-end or limited edition items in the country for decades. This means there is a lot of desirable stuff here.
其次，日本最初购买的都是正品：上市的二手商品基本可以确保非仿冒品，这在一定程度上缓解了涉足该市场的顾虑。第三点与此密切相关，即这些商品在全新时日本始终是一个庞大且充满吸引力的市场：除了本国生产的各类商品外，国际品牌数十年来也一直在日本销售其高端或限量版产品。这意味着此地蕴藏着大量令人心仪的物品。

Towering over all of this, at least for the time being, has been the now prolonged weakness of the yen — a factor that makes the entire used goods market in Japan vastly more attractive in dollar, euro or renminbi terms. Wide expectations of an interest rate increase by the Bank of Japan later this week have failed to lift the yen from its trough, meaning that a barely touched Louis Vuitton bag, sold from one of Japan’s mass-market pawnshops, is still a spectacular bargain to a buyer from outside.
至少在当前阶段凌驾于所有这些因素之上的，是日元持续已久的疲软态势——这一因素使得以美元、欧元或人民币计价的日本整体二手商品市场吸引力大幅提升。尽管市场普遍预期日本央行将于本周晚些时候加息，但日元仍未走出低谷。这意味着，从日本某家大众当铺售出的近乎全新的路易威登手袋，对于海外买家而言依然是惊人的实惠之选。