The Price of Friendship

-About $105.00 American Dollar-

When my friends and I first saw the glass cabinet filled with fruit we thought it was strange. Then we looked at the prices and became thoroughly amused.

Some fruit over here is very expensive. In an area nearby a melon cost at the same store, a melon cost around 3,000 yen, or about 30 American dollars. Similar prices can be found at nearby stores.

The price for gift fruit on the other hand, is a bit more:

-Gift Melons: $(25)2.00; $157.50; $315.00 00 respectively-

Gift melon may be the most commonly seen, but all fruits can become exquisite gift fruits. Gift fruits are specially grown, and taken care of. For instance “Growers trim the vines so that only three melons will grow on each tree. When the baby melons grow to the size of a human fist, two are chopped off to allow the most promising one to monopolize all the nourishment from the vine. That one melon is expected to mature into the juicy, beautiful and revered $100 dollar fruit” (An article copied here[scroll down to third comment]).

Of course, fruit is still fruit. Stores have managed to make a form of ‘brand-name’ fruit with the extravagant prices. These gift fruits are generally not bought to be eaten by the buyer, but to be given as a gift. A gift’s appropriateness is based on price, as demonstrated on this article. There is a certain range the gift should be in for certain situations, as seen in this article.

There have been several occurrences with Barrack Obama giving ‘strange gifts’ in England to other higher-ups, and can be used demonstrate, on a less-international level (hopefully?), how awkward it would be to give the wrong price/status gift. How much you spend does send a message, even if it’s just on a melon.