Trust me; choose a career as a journalist. You get to see a whole lot of stuff that’s off limits to most. Like a shoal of fish that has never had it so good.
When I woke up yesterday, little did I know I had a date. With some pecans. But not the kind for lunch. A quick dash by high-speed train to Suzhou later, and with each of these fish worth in the vicinity of ¥700,000, below is what about ¥25 million worth of Koi carp look like.
For rural Wuzhong District in Suzhou is home to the Su Xin Koi Farm that is the largest Koi carp breeding base in the world. And most of the time, it’s open only to those with very deep and somewhat fishy smelling, pockets.
Selectively bred for their resale value, those pecans worth north of half a million typically weigh two kilograms, with their value increasing until the fish reaches its optimum age; in the Koi’s case, around 7 years old. And just as with humans, it’s all downhill from there…
Their value, of course, stems from their symbolism in Japanese culture with perseverance, strength and good fortune. With the Chinese more than happy to jump on that particular Sino-Japanese band wagon, such lucky associations in Suzhou topped out with a fish selling for over ¥2 million.
Pampered pecans they be too. Especially the young. Given that the big bucks these little ones shall represent in the future, the babies are given their own temperature-controlled greenhouse, in waters kept at a constant 22 degrees all year round.
So, needless to say, they also have a solar-powered feeder providing their lunch, which I didn’t have. Perhaps journalists are not such a lucky bunch after all, unlike the owners of those Koi in Suzhou…
