Some time ago, Japan held a state funeral for Shinzo Abe, spending 1.66 billion yen, equivalent to 81.93 million yuan.
The money made the Japanese people particularly unhappy, and the opposition was endless, but the Japanese found that the crematorium for Abe's cremation was a Chinese company.
Moreover, not only Abe, but 90% of the entire Tokyo people cannot escape the same fate, which makes them even more unpleasant.
It turns out that of the only 9 crematoriums in Tokyo, only 7 are privately owned, which is also the choice of most people. However, there are 6 of them that belong to the same company and are owned by a Chinese.
Therefore, Japanese netizens said sourly:
"The day of becoming a province of Japan is not far away..."
So, who is this Chinese who single-handedly arranged the "aftermath" of the Japanese? How did he cross the ocean and monopolize almost all crematoriums in Tokyo, a place where every inch of land is scarce?
Luo Yiwen is the one who tasted the first wave of dividends during the reform and opening up period.
In 1989, he crossed the ocean and came to Japan. At this time, Luo Yiwen was still very young, he spoke unskilled Japanese, and he had nothing but the courage of "newborn calves are not afraid of tigers".
However, he is indeed a business wizard and has started his own company in just 3 years.
And his business talent is also on full display. Relying on running a newspaper for Chinese in Japan, Luo Yiwen quickly established a foothold in Japan's cultural industry with a copy of the "Chinese Herald".
Most of his readers are young, mainly teenagers and twenties, who are new to the study abroad generation, feeling new and unfamiliar with everything around them, but their Japanese may not be as good as reading the original newspaper.
The Chinese Herald helped them solve a big problem, and the Japanese news article with dynamic, past tense and inverted sentences was translated and found to be an anniversary advertisement by a home improvement company.
There are also a lot of current affairs information and life information, which are available in the "Chinese Herald".
Therefore, people who came to buy "Chinese Herald" were overwhelmed, and there was even a scene that Chinese students did not know "Yomiuri Shimbun" and "Asahi Shimbun", only "Chinese Herald".
With the increase in the number of students studying in Japan every year, the sales and subscriptions of Chinese Herald are also increasing year by year.
In 2003, as the president of Chinese Herald, he was invited to return to China to attend the opening ceremony of the 2nd World Chinese Media Forum. This year, he was in his early thirties, but he could stand on the stage without showing any fear.
He used Japan's CS satellite broadcasting system to establish "Lele China" TV (SKY), and seized the "admission ticket" of the Internet to create Japan's largest Chinese travel network "JCBus".
At its peak, "JCBus" received more than 18 million monthly visits.
But Luo Yiwen has never forgotten that he is a Chinese. He lamented again and again, "Chinese is always in my heart" and "the concept of China has a great market in Japanese society."
After speaking, the middle-aged man burst into tears. The years in a foreign country, although it seems to be a scenery, has always been rootless. The moon is the hometown of Ming, which has always been unforgettable, and it is still a rural sound.
In Chinese Industry Company, Luo Yiwen has been immersed in cultivation for nearly 20 years and accumulated a large amount of wealth.
In 2008, the global financial crisis broke out, and no one in the fields of foreign trade, foreign exchange, culture and education was spared. Even Japan's No. 1 Chinese-language newspaper, Chinese Herald, is stretched thin.
Sitting in his large office in Akihabara, Lo is more aware than ever of the downward pressure on Japan's economy, especially the cultural industry, and the building will collapse.
At the same time, he was also thinking about transformation, and the popularity of "JCBus" gave Luo Yiwen confidence, and he founded Shanghai Xintiandi Co., Ltd., later known as Japan Tourism Duty Free Co., Ltd. non-stop.
In 2009, a merger and acquisition attracted the public's attention. The acquirer is China's Suning Tesco, and the acquisition is Laox, a long-established Japanese home appliance retailer brand, and many smart toilets come from here.
However, the promoter of this merger and acquisition is none other than Luo Yiwen.
He keenly identified a new business opportunity - the number of tourists in Japan surged, and Laox was just able to meet the shopping needs of tourists, so Luo Yiwen threaded the needle between Suning and Laox with first-hand contacts and resources.
Until the end of the acquisition, he became the biggest winner, not only as the general manager of Suning's "Tokyo Region", but also as the president of Laox, with a stake of 23.94% of LAOX.
Luo Yiwen's vision is indeed very vicious, relying on the marketing method of "specific duty-free shops", Laox is popular in China.
From 2014 to 2015, countless Chinese flew to Japan to snap up a Laox Nissan rice cooker and electric toilet lid, and the daily turnover was surprisingly high, becoming one of the largest duty-free chain enterprises in Japan.
It's just that with the arrival of the new crown epidemic, overseas travel has received a cold reception, and the "Laox fever" is also cooling.
In 2016, Laox's financial report showed that it had already lost 1.5 billion yen on its books, and in 2020, half of its 24 stores were closed, and the remaining stores turned to selling food.
In the face of the ups and downs of the mall, Luo Yiwen did not admit defeat easily.
In September 2021, a message popped up on Luo Yiwen's mobile phone that former Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso's family business, the Aso Group, had sold off a large number of shares, all of which were from a company called Kōjido.
Luo Yiwen immediately investigated the information of Kwangjido, a printing company, but it is best known for its subsidiary that controls the entire Tokyo area crematorium business, Tokyo Bozen Co., Ltd.
As long as he took these shares, he could become the majority shareholder of Kwangjido and then control Tokyo Hakuzen Co., Ltd.
It took a short time for Luo Yiwen to make the decision, acquisition!
With Laox's early profits, he quickly took a 25% stake in Guangjitang, and added it in early 2022 until it exceeded 40%. At this time, the entire Tokyo Bozen Co., Ltd. was included by Luo Yiwen.
And the reason for Luo Yiwen's decision is also very simple:
On the one hand, Japan is aging badly.
As of February 2022, Japan's total population is 125 million, and the elderly population over 65 years old is 36.24 million, accounting for 29%, and according to the Japanese government, Japan's aging population will be close to 40 million by 2040.
In other words, in Japan, one in three people is elderly.
This indicator has far surpassed European and American countries, almost 2.5 times that of China. In order to cope with the aging problem, many companies hire people over the age of 65 to continue to work until they retire at the age of 70.
Another problem brought about by aging is the high mortality rate, which reached 777,000 deaths in Japan in the first half of 2022, which is equivalent to 177 Japanese deaths every hour.
And all the "afterlife" arrangements are inseparable from the funeral industry, especially crematoriums. If it is a sparsely populated area, there may be sufficient resources, but the population density in Tokyo has made cremation queues.
Because more than 36 million people live here, almost a third of the total number.
This also leads to the fact that on the other hand, the existing pattern behind the Tokyo crematorium is difficult to change.
The Tokyo metropolitan area occupies only about 3.59% of the country's area, and after private ownership, there is no place to build a crematorium. And the topic of death is unlucky for most Japanese.
Even if it were possible to finalize a new crematorium, it would be abandoned due to opposition from nearby residents.
As a result, not only did not want the crematorium to be built on the doorstep, but could not avoid this demand, and could only "cheapen" the existing crematorium. Tokyo Bozen Co., Ltd. is the biggest monopoly in this.
It not only monopolizes the cremation business in the entire Tokyo metropolitan area, but also the funeral business, and Lo Yiwen took inspiration from the experience of the original duty-free shop to provide free funeral "one-stop" services for crematorium customers.
At the crematorium operated by Tokyo Hirozen, there is a safe and perfect cremation business, and there is no need to contact the funeral home, and there is a ceremonial hall in the crematorium, where customers can conduct funeral services on the spot as needed.
Once this business was launched, many funeral homes felt like they were facing a big enemy, and they couldn't compete with it.
Luo Yiwen's decision turned out to be correct.
According to the data, Tokyo Boshan had sales of more than 9.3 billion yen (about 450 million yuan) last year and net assets of 35.5 billion yen (about 1.7 billion yuan).
As the largest shareholder of Tokyo Bozen and Guangjitang, Luo Yiwen made a lot of money by monopolizing the crematorium.
In addition to his own business vision, the Japanese value "afterlife" is also one of the reasons.
In the movie "The Undertaker", the male protagonist crosses the feet of the body and then binds his hands with Buddha beads, each step is extremely careful. In real life, there is also a special "preparation before death" to review your life and thank relatives and friends...
Luo Yiwen grasped this psychology of the Japanese and successfully made the business an important part of the Japanese life, and the crematorium he ran firmly grasped the "freedom of cremation" of Tokyoites in his hands.
On a deeper level, his success cannot be bypassed by the powerful motherland behind him.
The first lesson China taught Japan was to learn to respect life. Mountains and rivers are different, the wind and the moon are the same day, and the profound and vast Chinese wisdom tells us that to have respect for life is to treat death well and prepare for it seriously.
Tokyo Boshan Crematorium may make the Japanese understand that death is not the end, but may also be the starting point of Sino-Japanese friendship.
-END-
Author: He Yuyao
Editor: Grass
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