Yamiichi (black market) - Yamiichi

Japanese: やみ市(闇市) - やみいち

A group of street vendors selling daily necessities and simple food and drink, ignoring the wartime economic controls that continued after World War II. During the war, buying and selling in violation of controls was called black market trading. The name black market came about because it was done openly. In the fall of 1945, demobilized soldiers, unemployed factory workers and small shopkeepers whose stores and factories had been burned down in air raids and could not reopen, bought food from farming and fishing villages and made daily necessities such as pots and kettles out of cast iron, and sold them on the ground in burnt-out areas in front of train stations. This was the beginning of black market.

Source: Heibonsha World Encyclopedia, 2nd Edition Information

Japanese:

第2次大戦後も存続していた戦時経済統制を無視して，生活必需品を売ったり，簡単な飲食をさせた露店の集団。戦争中に統制違反の売買をすることをやみ取引といった。それが公然と行われたのでやみ市の名称が生じたのである。1945年の秋，復員兵や空襲で焼けて店や工場が再開しない失業工員や小商店主が，農村や漁村から食糧を買い出してきたり，鋳物などでなべ，かまなどの生活必需物資を作って，駅前の焼け跡などで地上に商品を置いて売ったのがやみ市のはじまりであった。

出典　株式会社平凡社世界大百科事典第２版について　情報

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