What does the hot-and-cold reception of news about Japan-standard rice tell us?
A industry's product confidence, industrial confidence, and even a nation's national confidence must be built not only on the foundation of rational understanding and scientific practice, but also on an public-opinion and social environment that reinforces such confidence.
Recently, there were three news items about "Japan-standard" rice: two were hyped up, while one went quietly unnoticed, which says quite a lot.
First, after the rush to buy Japanese rice cookers and toilet seat boards, Chinese travelers rushed to buy Japanese rice, paying 1,500 yuan for 5 kilograms! Second, it was just certified by the Panjin City Agriculture Committee of Liaoning Province: that Japanese "Hitomebore" brand rice that was snapped up at 300 yuan per kilogram was in fact grown in Panjin on order for Japan; the same variety and quality sells in Panjin for only 12 yuan per kilogram! Third, according to media reports such as Farmers' Daily: Nanjing has produced a "beyond-Japan-standard" rice; tested by the Swiss SGS authoritative testing agency, the content of 318 pesticides and heavy metals is far below Japan's 304-item testing standard, and its overall quality also far exceeds Japan-standard rice, hence the name "beyond-Japan-standard." At 52 yuan per kilogram, it was in short supply at Nanjing Jinying Supermarket, and it seems to have shattered the globally recognized myth that "Japan-standard" rice is the best. Yet this news item did not attract much attention from the media or society.
Three news items about "Japan-standard" rice, some hot and some cold: what does this tell us?
At the very least, it shows the zeal and blindness of some Chinese people in worshiping foreign brands, and it shows a lack of product confidence, brand confidence, and industrial confidence in domestically produced goods. Why does this absurdity occur? A reader of Farmers' Daily, after reading the news that Nanjing produces and sells "beyond-Japan-standard" rice in hot demand, wrote in a letter: "After chasing after European infant formula and imported New Zealand milk, Chinese people have now set their sights on expensive Japanese rice. Everyone thinks we cannot produce high-standard, high-quality, delicious rice ourselves, so how can we blame Chinese people for buying Japanese rice? Now, that high-quality, safe, and delicious 'beyond-Japan-standard' rice has restored our confidence and hope!"
A nation's self-confidence is a nation's affirmative, positive self-understanding and self-evaluation; such confidence is built on the foundation of rational understanding and necessary practice. In the course of investigation, the author learned that the enterprise in Nanjing producing "beyond-Japan-standard" rice had, first of all, a kind of product and industrial confidence. The company's boss, Zhang Shenwei, believes that China is one of the countries with more than 7,000 years of rice-growing history and the richest rice genetic resources, and is the world's largest rice producer and consumer. Chinese agricultural enterprises have historical inheritance, practical needs, and social responsibility to produce rice that exceeds Japanese standards.
Therefore, they formulated a high-standard rice system exceeding Japan's standard by 14 items. In accordance with the latest concepts of designed agriculture and high-standard requirements, they strictly screened rice production bases, innovated production and operation entities and mechanisms, and carried the concepts and standards of safe, high-quality, and healthy production through the entire process of rice production before, during, and after cultivation. Solely to ensure ecological and green plant protection effects, their plant protection team was composed entirely of undergraduates and graduate students from famous universities, using the most advanced large-scale plant protection machinery and technology, and produced high-quality rice exceeding Japanese standards.
However, after this news report, it did not trigger the same hype effect as the previous two news items. People accustomed to being keen on and seeking novelty in negative news, while exclaiming at the extraordinarily high price of Japan-standard rice and the distortion of Chinese consumer psychology, relatively few paid attention to and cared about the weight and contribution of domestically produced "beyond-Japan-standard" rice. And agricultural enterprises, especially rice production enterprises, when they have already gone all out to invest in the production and operation of "beyond-Japan-standard" rice, are even less likely to be able to put more funds into product publicity and marketing; they need our government and society to give attention and support, yet they are left "in dimmed lights," admiring themselves alone.
Three news items about "Japan-standard" rice, one hot and one cold: besides telling us something, they also tell us this: a industry's product confidence, industrial confidence, and even a nation's national confidence must be built not only on the foundation of rational understanding and scientific practice, but also on an public-opinion and social environment that reinforces such confidence.