What is the reason behind the orchid trading frenzy?
The red lantern was discovered in Yunlong in the mid-1990s.
This is what some media reported about the orchid market between 2005 and 2007, and the phrase used most often in those reports was "sky-high orchids." Why could a single pot of orchids be worth tens of millions of yuan? Was it hype within the circle or was it truly worth the price? For a time, opinions were divided. Before people could figure it out, just like the stock market in those years, after a brief frenzy it quickly returned to calm, and by 2008, the same pot of orchids worth tens of millions of yuan had fallen to the point where no one wanted it even at a few tens of thousands of yuan. Yet in 2010, in Sichuan, Yunnan, Guangxi and other places, some people were trying every possible means to raise funds and buy up high-grade orchids that had already dropped in price.
Song Shiping, an orchid dealer in Chengdu: This one is 116,000 yuan. In the past, this kind of thing would have been worth 10 to 20 million yuan. Now, you see, I'm trying every possible way to sell storefronts, buy villas, and trade cars for them. BMWs, you see, my BMW, my Mercedes-Benz, and my off-road vehicles have all been traded away.
Song Shiping is the largest orchid dealer in Chengdu. He dares to make such a big move because all his orchids are sold to one person whose strength is even greater than his own, and when it comes to this person, in the orchid world he is known to everyone and no one does not know him.
Huang Minqiang, a dealer in Shunde District, Guangdong Province: Anyone who knows orchids knows Mr. Chen. Even people in Hong Kong, China, Macao, China, and Taiwan, China know him.
Wei Mulin, chairman of the Taipei Guolan Association: Many people in Taiwan, China, dare to buy flowers only after seeing him and seeing whether he has the variety. Only if he has it do they dare to buy.
Liu Qingyong, vice president of the China Orchid Association: He has collected more than 2,000 varieties, and no other orchid garden in the country has so many varieties.
This is Chen Shaomin. In the orchid world, people who grow orchids and admire orchids call each other orchid friends. Like other orchid friends, he once lived through the myth of getting rich overnight, and also experienced the embarrassment of wealth of tens of millions turning to zero in the blink of an eye. Why did Chen Shaomin go against the trend and buy large quantities of orchids when the orchid market was sluggish? In fact, this was only part of his huge plan, and it was by relying on this plan that, amid the great ups and downs of the orchid market, he achieved the largest scale and the most varieties, with annual sales of over 100 million yuan; it was also by relying on this plan that he became the bellwether of the orchid market. What kind of plan was this, and what kind of legendary figure was Cheng Shaomin? This takes us back 20 years.
Chen Shaomin was born into an orchid-growing family in Shantou, Guangdong. Influenced by his grandfather, Chen Shaomin loved growing orchids from childhood. At that time, Chen Shaomin's family grew orchids only for appreciation, and it was not until a trip to Shunde in 1990 that Chen Shaomin learned that orchids could be used for another purpose besides appreciation.