Nice Melons
I had an email this morning from a TV show in the UK wanting some history on the Melon Drop. The Melon Drop is a classic scam perpetrated against Japanese tourists.
The tourist is tricked into accidentally breaking a melon which they are forced to pay for. Since Melons are often quite expensive in Japan, the victim pays over-inflated prices for the cheap fruit.
‘The Melon Drop’ has become short hand for any similar scam. Here is my reply:
Hi –
You’ve asked a bit of a loaded question there!
The idea of tricking a victim into ‘accidentally’ breaking an item is as old as time. It was particularly popular in the middle ages.
However, ‘The Melon Drop’ involving Japanese tourists and expensive fruit is far more popular as a story than it is as an actual real-world scam.
Most of the reports are anecdotal rather than from verifiable sources. I can tell you the following…
It most likely started in San Francisco in the early 1970s. After the Tokyo Olympics in 1964, Japan lifted the country’s strict post-war travel restrictions, allowing Japanese citizens to travel abroad far more easily. The Japanese have had a long history of ‘travel for pleasure’, stemming back to the seventh century, and huge numbers of middle- and upper-class Japanese were eager to travel for the first time.
A large number travelled to San Francisco, which has always attracted Southeast Asian people going back to the gold rush in the 1800’s. The modern Fortune Cookie comes from San Francisco, and the city is one of the few in the US to have a “Japantown”.
Most of my resources suggest that it was here that the scam first involving melons and Japanese tourists occurred.
I hope this is of some help!
All the best,
Nicholas
