Crate of Oranges Sells for $9,600 in Japan

CNN ^ | 5th November 2020 | Maggie Hiufu Wong and Junko Ogura

[nickcarraway]

How many mandarin oranges can you buy with one million yen -- or roughly $9,600?

For one fruit-loving buyer at an auction this week in Japan, the answer is just 100.

A single, 20-kilogram crate of 100 Japanese mandarins (also called mikan) hit the auction block on Thursday at Tokyo's central wholesale Ota Market.

[aposiopetic]

"Fruits are treated differently in Asian culture and in Japanese society especially,"

I really don't want to go there.

[Tennessee Nana]

In the early 1970s we were stationed in Okinawa and we had a bank account of one million yen at the Bank of America...

But at $1 to Y300+ we had a lot more than just $9,600...

Our rent was Y46,000 ($160)

:)

[Steve Van Doorn]

Why not? you can grow oranges in a green house.

[blam]

These Mandarian Oranges are known here as Satsumas, I have a loaded tree of them in my back yard presently. They're delicious. We even have a city named for them, Satsuma

" Satsuma is a city in Mobile County, Alabama, United States. At the 2010 census the population was 6,168. Known prior to 1915 as Fig Tree Island, the city was named after the Satsuma orange, which was successfully cultivated and grown in Alabama starting in 1878, a gift from Emperor Meiji of Japan. Satsuma is a part of the Mobile metropolitan statistical area.

[21twelve]

Back in high school after a ski race and riding back on the bus. We had been delayed and everyone was thirsty and hungry.

I had two oranges. I kept half of one and sold the rest for 25 cents a slice! I thought that was a pretty nice deal. Until I saw this!

[CardCarryingMember.VastRightWC]

$1 was always 360 Yen for all the years I grew up in Japan until we left in 1968. Mikan were OK, but Nashi were my ultra favorite of any fruit found on either side of the Atlantic.

I was sooooo happy when a few US groceries started selling them. They call them "Asian Pears" here. Unfortunately they're still quite expensive and hard to find.

[Tennessee Nana]

What we called Chinese Goosgogs, Chinese Gooseberries in New Zealand when I was a child, are called Kiwifruit here...

A kiwi is a flightless nocturnal bird...

[reg45]

They go well with wagyu beef.

[Slyfox]

How big is that crate?

[spokeshave]

If you ask that...you can’t afford it.

[deks]

20 kilograms = 44 pounds

[deek69]

“Again with the Oranges”

[Hillarys Gate Cult]

It can be said that the buyer had a yen for oranges.

[Woodman]

You did the math backwards. Yen today is worth close to 3 times as much as it was back then.

[far sider]

Wow. Seinfeld was right.