Shanghai hairy crabs help Taiwan residents start businesses

Original title: The fantastic drift of Shanghai hairy crabs to Taiwan

Chen Yunyong, 60, owner of the Miaoli Golden Hairy Crab Farm, cleans up debris in a crab pond (photographed on November 17).

"A half-mu pond opens like a mirror, where skylight and cloud shadows linger together." In Nanzhuang Township, Miaoli County, Taiwan, the ecological farm by the roadside belonging to local resident Zhong Fugui presents an idyllic scene, exactly as described in the poem by the ancient poet Zhu Xi. Beside the pond where chickens, ducks and geese swim, some tourists are enjoying a hearty meal in the restaurant, feasting on authentic hairy crabs with "green shells, white bellies, yellow hair and golden claws."

Miaoli is an agricultural county in central Taiwan, and hairy crab farming has developed there as an emerging industry for only a few short years. "When the autumn wind blows, crab legs itch." In Taiwan, there are plenty of gourmets who love hairy crabs, and some even fly specially to the area around Yangcheng Lake in Jiangsu every golden autumn to feast on them. But for many years, hampered by insufficient local production and the high price of imported crabs, many people found it hard to enjoy this delicacy.

In the second half of 2011, Miaoli County proposed to the visiting head of the Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits that the mainland send experts to guide hairy crab farming. This request received a positive response from the relevant mainland authorities very quickly, which led to technical cooperation between Shanghai and Miaoli on hairy crabs.

Starting in January 2012, Miaoli County has imported crab seedlings from Shanghai every year. The "baby crabs" emerge from Chongming Island and travel by plane all the way to Miaoli. Shanghai Ocean University, in turn, sent expert teams to Miaoli to promote ecological crab-farming techniques. Over the past 4 years, Miaoli has imported a cumulative total of more than 2 million crab seedlings from Shanghai. The county now has 75 crab-farming businesses, with a farming area of more than 32 hectares. This year, the county's hairy crab output will reach about 150,000 crabs, with an output value of about 45 million yuan.

Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Jiang Kehong

This is the crab pond at Zhong Fugui's home in Nanzhuang Township, Miaoli County (photographed on November 17). Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Jiang Kehong

Zhong Fugui of Nanzhuang Township, Miaoli County, introduces his own farmed hairy crabs to tourists (photographed on November 17). Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Jiang Kehong

Chen Yunyong, 60, owner of the Miaoli Golden Hairy Crab Farm, steams crabs to entertain guests (photographed on November 17). Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Jiang Kehong