Auctioneers present the wares one at a time to buyers at the wholesale flower division at Ota Market.

Outside it's rain and snow, but inside the Ota Market flower division it is a fluorescent city of perpetual spring. Not like a Mayfair of petticoated flower-mongers mind you, but something more along the lines of Fritz Lang's ``Metropolis.''

It's a cavern of motion and color: Workers rush crates into giant elevators or onto conveyor belts that snake through the building. Here, the trolleys roll on their own, guided by rails built into the ground that make the place seem more a mine than a market. This transportation network seemingly was built for one purpose: to get roses into the hands of Tomoko Tsukise.

The heart of the Ota flower market is its computerized amphitheaters, where Tsukise, one of six auctioneers for Flower Auction Japan, works under a large computerized price board that looks like a motorcycle tachometer.

As an auctioneer licensed by the Tokyo metropolitan government, Tsukise displays flowers to the arena of buyers, and sets the starting bid prices. It's no small task: On this particular day, Flower Auction Japan will sell 1,177,005 flowers, to the tune of 74,735,508 yen. Twenty to 30 percent of that is sold directly on the floor that morning.

``I can get pretty nervous out there,'' says Tsukise, who doesn't sound it. ``After all, it's win or lose. I want to get 40 yen a stem, for example, but the buyers won't move from 38 yen. If I set too high a price you get evil stares; the buyers think you're trying to cheat them.''

Tsukise started auctioning one month ago. She started at the market seven years ago, she says, because she wanted a job with mobility. Originally she was part of the army moving stock to the block and dividing it according to orders. Three years ago, she applied for her auctioneer's license.

``It looks confusing behind the auction area but it's actually simple,'' she says. ``It's a good job. When you're a mover you don't have to think.''

Now, she says, the satisfaction comes from dealing with people. She meets growers directly, and recently went to Colombia, the world capital for carnations.

``The buyers tend to sit in the same place every day,'' Tsukise says. ``In the center seats are the old-timers-that's their territory. Newer people, or people who aren't likely to buy anything, they tend to be at the back. That way they can walk between here and the other auction hall to compare prices. Or maybe they have a partner in there they can talk with on their cellphones. The veterans don't need to do that. They pretty much know what's worth what.''

Many of the movers are young women, as are many of the buyers at the smaller shops set up around the two auction areas. However, Tsukise-who speaks with a distinctly gruff downtown Tokyo manner-is the only woman on the auction floor.

``The flower wholesale industry is still a man's world,'' she says. ``But this is a good company to work for because they'll give you a chance.

``Maybe I do talk like a man, but that's a bonus,'' she adds with a laugh. ``If I didn't, maybe no one would buy from me.'' THE FACTS

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The 400,000-square-meter Ota Market, located in the bayside area of Tokyo's Ota Ward, is Asia's largest general wholesale market for perishables. Nine separate Tokyo Jonan-area flower markets were combined to create the market's flower division, which opened for business in 1990.

Flower Auction Japan is one of two large wholesalers at the market, which also houses 20 brokers. Combined, the firms handled an average of 3.29 million cut flowers and potted plants each day in 2002. Over 20,000 kinds of flowers and plants are traded, among which orchids are the most popular.

Flowers and potted plants are auctioned on separate days, beginning at 7 a.m. and lasting to about noon. Reflecting today's busy lifestyles, sales of cut flowers are increasing, while those of potted plants are slipping.(IHT/Asahi: March 12,2005)