Oranges from "Israel"

Israeli agriculture is known for its high efficiency considering the lack of water resources. Its irritation system is one of the best in the world. As a result, oranges from Israel should be welcome in countries all around the world, with the exception of its nemeses. Iran is the most outspoken of them, with its president repeatedly calling for Israel's being wiped off the map and denying of the Holocaust. The trade with Israel is strictly banned in the Islamic Republic. That's the reason why they reacted so strongly when they found some "Israeli" oranges in their market. But later, it turned out that they were just fooled: (BBC report)

A twist has emerged in the story of Israeli citrus fruit reportedly sold in Iran in defiance of a ban on commercial dealings between the two enemy states.

It has now been revealed the fruit, a type of orange-grapefruit hybrid marketed as Jaffa Sweetie, were not Israeli in the first place.

The Sweeties were brought to Iran from China, where faking the origin of goods is a common practice.

The discovery of apparent Israeli origin caused a stir in Iran.

The wisdom of Chinese people once again embarrassed others. But clearly, many intriguing problems lays behind this laughable farce.

Chinese economy is really booming and its enormous amount of export has led to a "Made in China" phenomenon. But together with the boom of exported goods is the notoriety of hardly satisfying quality. Besides the lead-contaminated toys, faking brands is another Chinese innovation. The faking of Jaffa is just another example. But this one doesn't bring any benefit, but a chaos to its destination.

As we often say, though jokingly, we Chinese are really wise that we can always find a way to circumvent the law. As As'ad said, Chinese even export products printed with local dialects to Yemen, which the Western companies fail to do. It seems that we really know how to sell as much as possible. But that's not always the case. Misunderstandings do happen due to lack of understanding of local culture and law. The use of "negro" to describe the color of food even resulted in a legal suit in the United States.

Probably we should hire better managers in order to find better ways to fake and fool others. But is it really the right and sustainable way to develop? While the government is declaring the intention of "peaceful rise", the illegal of foreign brands is just an economic "invasion", finally hurting Chinese reputation around the world. It would be too late to realize that when the word "Chinese" is synonymous with "fake" and "poor quality".

On the other hand, is Israeli orange so poisonous that it is dealt with as bird-flu-infected chicken. For their information, the oranges would have been much sweeter and healthier for them if they were truly from Israel.