Flower-selling women at the racetrack--smiles and business acumen on the urban periphery (1980s)

Flower-selling women at the racetrack--smiles and business acumen on the urban periphery (1980s)

In 1980s Tokyo, in a corner of the bustling city where the bubble economy was in full swing, another world was alive. Around the "men's battlefields" of horse race tracks and off-track betting offices, women with bouquets of flowers in their hands ran their own businesses. These women were never mere vendors. They read the customer's financial situation and mood in a short exchange, and then say something that will make the customer buy. They were witty talkers, wise in their daily lives, and determined to make a living.
They were mothers and women who worked hard under the mask of "flower sellers" in a corner of the huge city of Tokyo, supporting their families and raising their children, while sometimes having ambiguous relationships with the backstage business. While the men who flocked to the off-station betting halls chased after their dreams of getting rich, these women supported the daily reality of life from the ground up. In the tense atmosphere of gambling, these women continue to stand firm with their smiles and flowers.
On the periphery of the city, where there is no glamour, there breathes a certain touch of life and the smell of humanity. The reality is not staged. As a record of women living in the shadows of the city, this is a valuable record that illuminates the "overlooked landscape" of Japanese society during the transitional period of the 1980s.