The whole Tsukiji experience is comparable to strolling through the fish section of Whole Foods early one morning when the LSD kicks in and the store suddenly turns into JFK Airport and a monster bike rally is starting and a marathon walk is ending and all the cars have Jersey plates and valet service is provided by Hell’s Angels. You are the outsider at the fish anarchist’s ball.

The sun finally rises. You are in a state of distress. A lesser man would clumsily dub it Turrets Syndrome. Or say he felt like a fish out of water. A stevedore volunteers to help you. It registers that few Japanese can speak English, or deign to. You pepper this poor fellow with questions. He doesn’t mind. He has a brother in Houston, he likes Barack Obama, he is upset that the market will soon be moving, he recommends a sushi joint. Then he bows and he gets back to work.

Wait a second. The market will soon be moving?

You are the only American in the small sushi restaurant. You point to items on the menu and smile. Oysters come as large as softballs. Beheaded shrimp crawl along the counter. You keep your counsel. Your wife tries to keep the contents of her stomach in her stomach. None of the locals pay much attention. A half million tourists pass this way every year. The silent tension at Tsukiji is palpable, and not unknown to residents of any vacation town: Tourists are welcome, tourists are feared, tourists are invited to appreciate the culture but not to disturb it. Fish may feel the same way about us.

You read the official handouts: 480 species are on sale here, from abalone to zebra mussels. You wonder why they can’t get along with 477 species and leave the bluefin alone. You would never dare say this out loud.

You try hard to eavesdrop. Conversations in broken English are difficult to find or follow. You pick up random details about the impending move. After 80 years, Tsukiji (pronounced tsee-gee)will soon relocate, a mile and half away, to a man-made island called Toyosu. That will put it within walking distance of the Tokyo Olympics, arriving in 2020. It will be a great boon to the local economy. That’s how real estate developers are selling it. But there is a catch: Toyosu is contaminated. The site once housed a gas plant and the soil remains dirty. The deeper they dig, the more toxins they find. Environmentalists are fuming. Unions are protesting. Lawsuits are flying. Fisherman are appalled by both the pollution and the sky high rents. Half of them will not make the move to Toyosu, which will be twice the size of Tsujiki, and fully air-conditioned, and more sanitary, and easier to reach by car. Bridges and boardwalks are being built right now. The estimated cost of the move is $4 billion, though everyone knows it will cost more. Change is never cheap nor uncomplicated.

One well-traveled fisherman laughs and asks if anyone would knock down Fenway Park because it is old and outmoded, too charming for its own good. He fears Toyosu Market will become the Times Square of Tokyo: clean, boring and without character. He will not make the move.

And what will fill this enormous empty Tsukiji space? Casinos and resorts are the heavy favorites; Tokyo wants to be a global gambling mecca, second only to Macau. Yen, yen, yen. Wagering makes sense. You have been gambling since you got here, dodging Turrets and trucks, consuming mysterious fish, conforming to rules you can only guess at. Strange. You have spent just a few hours in Tsukiji (pronounced squee-gee) and already feel protective and aghast that they want to move it. How dare they?

Afterword: Back in the USA, I go out for a late-night snack with a chef friend to compare notes on Japan. The owner of a local bistro recognizes the chef and corners him. “Tell me something, chef. Why are customers giving me a hard time for serving bluefin tuna?” The chef gently lays out the statistics about the endangered creature. The owner listens, scratches his head, and then delivers a one-liner worthy of Yogi Berra: “If there’s such a shortage of tuna, how come I see it everywhere?”