Paddlefish Farming: The Story of Him Secretly Going Up the Mountain

He farmed a kind of fish that many locals had never seen, and it kept people exclaiming in amazement. His method of farming the fish drew a great deal of skepticism. He left his family behind and hid himself away in the deep mountains. What secret was he hiding, and what business opportunity had he actually discovered in this fish that many locals had never seen?

This is the Fengting Lake Reservoir. When the reporter came to this reservoir to interview Fu Wei, it happened to be right when he was organizing tourists to visit his cage fish-farming base.

Fu Wei: Wait a moment. When we go over to the base, don't wander off, and pay attention to your safety.

Fu Wei told the reporter that many people had never seen the fish he was farming here. To promote these fish of his, Fu Wei often held activities at the farming base.

Fu Wei: So do you want to take a look? Then let's all take a look together, okay?

Tourist: Okay.

Fu Wei: All right, we're pulling up the net now.

The moment these fish surfaced, there was a chorus of exclamations on the spot.

Tourist: I see it, I see it, over there, what a big one.

Fu Wei: Have you ever seen such a strange fish?

Tourist: No, first time.

Tourist: Wow, fun!

The appearance of this fish aroused everyone's curiosity and speculation.

Tourist: Like a shark.

Reporter: Like what?

Tourist: A shark.

Tourist: Like a duck.

Tourist: Its mouth is just pointy, different from all other fish.

The scientific name of the fish Fu Wei farms is paddlefish (Polyodon spathula). Because it has a long snout, people also call it the duck-bill fish. Not only does it look strange, it is also a very ancient species, from the same era as the dinosaurs, having survived on Earth for more than 200 million years.

Today, Fu Wei organized a competition at the reservoir fish-farming base. Within 10 minutes, whoever caught the biggest fish could take the paddlefish they caught home for free.

Fu Wei: Are you ready?

Fu Wei: 1, 2, 3, go!

Tourist: Come here, come here, come here.

Paddlefish have especially smooth skin and swim very fast in the water, so they are not easy to catch.

Tourist: Very hard to catch, too slippery, I don't know how to catch it, can't catch it.

Fu Wei stepped in himself to teach everyone how to catch this kind of paddlefish.

After Fu Wei's demonstration, someone figured out the trick and was the first to pull out a paddlefish.

Reporter: How did you catch it?

Tourist: I grabbed it by the mouth and pulled it up.

Tourist: Who's going to compare for the biggest one?

Everyone was catching fish with great enthusiasm, but Fu Wei suddenly shouted loudly.

Fu Wei: Hold it upright, upright. That fish can't be lifted sideways, its bone will break.

It turns out that a paddlefish has no small bones throughout its body. Only its snout has a bone, which is used to send out signals and search for food. Then there is a flexible keel-like bone running from head to tail. If you lift it sideways, it is very easy to break its bone.

After 10 minutes, everyone had made a catch. According to the rules of the competition, the tourists went to the shore to weigh their fish and select the champion.

Reporter: Who's the champion?

Tourist: Me, who else, it's me.

Reporter: How big is your fish?

Tourist: It's five jin and two liang. Tonight I'll take it home and steam it. It's quite novel, how could there be this kind of fish? I heard it's very tasty, so I came to try it.

Fu Wei packed the champion's prize in an oxygen bag.

Fu Wei: Come claim your prizes, they're all packed now.

This fish, weighing five jin and two liang, sells for 380 yuan on the market. Fu Wei has 15400 sq m of cages, all farming paddlefish. In 2015, paddlefish sales reached more than 4 million yuan.

But 6 years ago, precisely because of farming paddlefish, Fu Wei did many things that drew skepticism, his family faced a crisis because of it, and even many villagers thought he was crazy. So what business opportunity did Fu Wei actually see in paddlefish? All of this goes back to 2011.

During the 2011 Spring Festival, everywhere was filled with the scene of families reunited and full of joy, but Fu Wei's wife looked troubled, because she noticed that her husband was behaving very unusually, and often did not come home.

Wife: I'd call to find him. When I asked where he was, he'd say training, training employees, or holding an exhibition. When I called him again, he'd say he was discussing something with someone, that he was busy, busy, and he'd hang up right away.

At first his wife did not take it to heart, but gradually she found that being unable to reach Fu Wei had become the norm.

This situation continued for several months in a row. Not only did his wife begin to suspect something, even their 5-year-old daughter sensed that something was wrong.

Wife: My child kept asking, Mom, why haven't I seen Dad? Does Dad not want us anymore? Usually, no matter how busy his work was, he would come back to see the child, but at that time he didn't come back. And at that time I also wondered whether something had happened, and what was going on.

Fu Wei: Anyway, the rice was already cooked. Whatever anyone said, it could only be like this. I felt that at that time it was a rather shameful thing.

What unspeakable secret did Fu Wei actually have?

Fu Wei was born in 1984 in Hepu County, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. His family was poor from childhood. They relied on his father going out to sea to fish and his mother digging for sandworms to support Fu Wei and his three siblings through school.

In 2004, Fu Wei graduated from the Guangxi Armed Police Nanning Command School, majoring in public security. After that, he worked in the mobile phone communications industry in Beihai City, rising from an ordinary salesman to a sales supervisor, with a monthly salary of over ten thousand yuan. In 2010, his wife returned to her parents' home in Shangsi County, Fangchenggang City. Fu Wei, who worked in Beihai City, would return to Shangsi County every so often to visit his family. But after the 2011 Spring Festival, Fu Wei suddenly stopped coming home. And he disappeared for 8 months. What on earth was he doing?

Fu Wei: I'll show you now the house I lived in when I first came up the mountain.

Fu Wei: Now, come, you can take a look.

Fu Wei: Now the inside is already dilapidated.

Reporter: Such a small space?

Fu Wei: It's just a bit low, but anyway it was barely enough to sleep in. Not being rained on was already very satisfying. I spent nearly more than a year here.

It turns out that after the 2011 Spring Festival, Fu Wei quit his job without telling his family, hid himself alone deep in this mountain, and was brewing plans to do something big.