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I will miss the fruit. I know some people are creeped out by the over-groomed, obsessive perfectionism of Japanese fruit, but I think the colors and shapes are divine for anyone with a soft spot for aesthetics, and this is only amplified by their incredible taste and smell. It will be a hard landing with “quantity over quality” McFruit back in the USA, and I don’t know if I can ever eat American supermarket produce in good conscience again.

On the other hand, my roommate was telling me about a recent (Japanese) television program documenting some of the aspects (packaging, agriculture) of Japanese life which have a severely detrimental effect on the health and livelihood of people living in certain less affluent countries…I don’t know if fruit was an example but it certainly seems like the relentless pursuit of perfection here can be very myopic to any of its ancillary consequences (of course, i’m guessing many people say the same exact thing about America, and most likely with good reason).