Fake

Long time ago, there was the following event.

In a tiny village, there was a man running a cheap small liquor shop, making and selling alcoholic beverage. It was the only liquor shop in the village. One day, the man thought: if the alcohol was only little thinner, nobody would notice. So he diluted the alcohol in the huge urn with only a single ladle of water and began to sell it. Of course the price was unchanged. So, as the result, the man gained his profit little more.

Customers did not notice it at all. Rather, some even said: Ye' alcohol got tastier, eh? Therefore the man had confidence in this trick. One more ladle of water, and one more, he had diluted the alcohol little by little, for years and years, with great caution taking a long span between each ladle of water. The village had nothing particular resource but abundant flesh water. Customers' tongue could not catch the change of taste, and they were still content with the alcohol. The man had very cautiously continued this trick, and someday the generation had changed, now his son, and his son's son, had kept doing the same trick on and on. The alcohol had become thinner and thinner, and the profit had gained more and more.

The liquor shop prospered and had expanded its branches to other villages. Surprisingly, the thin alcoholic beverage made a hit. And some other day, after generations and generations had changed, the executive – descendant of the liquor shopkeeper – began to expand his business even more, to not only every drinks but to the food industry as well. He gathered researchers at the recently built research lab, and let them search for a new way to replace the good old ladle of water into alcohol. Thus, artificial sweets and artificial colors and much more other additives were invented. Well cheated food with those additives was, not only nobody realized, but rather well sold with favorable comments as tasty, tasty! Moreover, the more additives added, the more profit gained.

The former liquor shop now grew to a national company providing every kinds of food and drink to all over the country. People had still drunken the alcohol from this company, but it was utterly fake compared to the very first alcohol and almost mere water. Meat, fish, grain, real food was nowhere to find anymore. Everything was fake with some additives added. Chemical fertilizer and artificial feed, it was begun from the very beginning of any production. The trick like this could not compete other companies, one might wonder, but the answer was yes, it could. Because other companies learned from this national flagship company and intended to gain profit by the same trick. Besides, in this age which descended much further from the beginning, people had never tasted any real food. They had eaten and drunken only fakes since their childhood. That was the case even for the descendant of the liquor shopkeeper and other executives in the industry. And people believed fakes, the one national company provided, were very genuine.

Now, one day, a brand new venture business was launched. This company imported genuine raw food from natives living somewhere far away, and began to sell top quality finest food. People loving new stuff lured by the advertisement words “real original food” and tried it. The street in front of the venture company was even crowded with customers. But, as soon as tasting the food, everybody immediately shouted: I've never eaten such a distasteful thing like this, color looks weird too, this is a fake!

People's eye, and their tongue, were already too accustomed with fakes, its appearance and taste. They never accepted anything outside of that standard. To them, fakes were genuine. The venture company was called fraud, and the executive was accused for the activity of selling fakes. The one sued him was the national company, that former cheap small liquor shop.

In the court, all proofs and testimony the accused presented had no impact. The judge, the jury, and even the attorney had the reversed sense of standard to distinguish true and false. Because economy and law, everything was standardized based on the mindset like the national company had been taking. Fakes people make, fakes people being happy with. Fake order and fake law. To their eye, the descendant of the liquor shopkeeper looked a good citizen, the accused looked a fraudster. To their ear, the descendant of the liquor shopkeeper sounded honest, the accused sounded full of lies. Therefore, the accused was sentenced as guilty, and the venture company closed its business soon after.

Thus, taking long, long years and years, genuine things and fakes have utterly exchanged its position. Now genuineness is considered as fake, and fakes are considered as genuine.