Bonsai biker traverses Tokyo to tout tiny trees

[Anchorman]

Tadao Yoshida gets around Tokyo on a motorbike with a huge container on the back identical to those used by Japanese pizza delivery staff; but instead of carrying around diavolas or family deluxes, he carts bonsai from place to place, according to Shukan Shincho (8/2).

Bonsai deliveryman Yoshida worked for years as a bus driver and trucker before starting his dwarf plant business about three years ago.

Yoshida says he had long dreamed of opening his own bonsai shop. His love of the dwarf plants began when he was an elementary school pupil and his father would take him to exhibitions.

He opened Mona Kobo, his bonsai outlet, in part of his home in Tokyo's Minami Shinagawa district. But the location wasn't the greatest; so he figured if he couldn't get customers to come to him, he'd go to them, and came up with the idea of becoming a bonsai deliveryman.

Now he spends four or five days a week out on the beat, plugging his tiny plants in major Tokyo districts like Ginza, Nihonbashi, Shinbashi, Shibuya and Roppongi, Shukan Shincho says, adding that he carries around the larger plants on his pizza delivery-style motorbike.

Yoshida's bestsellers have been his micro-bonsai, which have a diameter of just 3 centimeters and include a pot and living, growing plant inside. His prices start at around 500 yen, and he sells the plants store-to-store in the districts he visits.

Yoshida's biggest customers are women and parents with young kids, but at nights he often finds himself having deep and meaningful discussions with middle-aged men on the virtues of bonsai.

Shukan Shincho says Yoshida also makes sure to promote his store when he travels around plugging his wee wares, allowing him to kill two birds with one stone. (By Ryann Connell)