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To: Jon Koplik who wrote (118792)5/14/2002 11:54:52 PM
From: Wyätt Gwyön  Read Replies (2) of 152472
 
In a high-stakes publicity stunt, Mistukoshi department store in the northern city of Sapporo bought a single
melon Tuesday for the juicy price of $1,171

this sounds like a low-stakes publicity stunt. it only cost a huge dept. store a little over $1000 to get free publicity as far away as America. that is a pretty good bang for your yen.

Pricey fruits are common in Japan, where apples, melons and grapes are coddled during cultivation and
prized as gifts. A passion for eating melons -- known to go for $78 each ordinarily -- is a sign of opulence.

think of them as gifts. they are actually really good gifts, because everybody likes a good melon (and they are good). and so if you have to buy somebody you don't know too well a 10,000 yen ($78) gift, why not make it a melon. that way they can eat it if they like, and they know you spent $80 on them. most likely, they will just give it to somebody else. because it's kind of a waste to eat an 80-dollar melon.

however, these gifts wouldn't do well in the US. because people wouldn't recognize that you spend 80 bucks on a melon.

weird factoid from the latest must-read book about Japan (called Dogs and Demons): Japan uses more concrete than the United States (as i recall they use twice as much). mainly this is because they have absolutely no environmental controls and coat just about any natural surface in cement. including all their rivers and large parts of their mountains. and don't forget the giant concrete tetrapods in the ocean that are designed to make the shoreline really ugly.
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