TAIWAN: OLYMPICS - Square watermelon carved with a national flag are the latest souvenir offered for the Olympics Games

Square watermelons carved with national flags and Olympics symbols were displayed in Taipei on Wednesday (October 17) as a souvenir for the 2008 Olympic games. Last month, the square watermelon gained recognition in Beijing as an Olympic selected fruit, said Willow Jean, Chairman of Chinese Agricultural Exchange Association. Jean started his study of fruit development more than a decade ago, and he has focused on promoting products internationally in recent years, with the Olympic Games in Beijing as a bonus. Although they look like ordinary watermelons, the square fruit is only for decoration because they have had the juice extracted so that they can be preserved for up to two years in room temperature. "We use this acrylic case on both sides, with a small opening for the stem. When it is about this size, we place it in. Watermelon takes 65 days to harvest, and the time spent inside the mould is only 20 days," Jean explained. Other fruits such as apples, pomelos and pumpkins are also part of the project. A heart shaped pomelo carved with the word "love" may be the perfect souvenir for weddings, said Jean. Supermarkets in China and Taiwan have ordered around 50,000 square watermelons which cost about 200 TWD ($6) each to produce, said Jean. The CAEA plans to sell the square watermelon in China at CNY$500 each, the equivalent of USD$66.5.

ITN Source | October 18, 2007

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