Overseas returnee Wu Guozheng returns home to start a turtle farm, overcomes many hardships and finally becomes wealthy
Wu Guozheng is introducing turtle species and habits. Photo by intern reporter Hu Jianrong
Wu Guozheng lifts with one hand an alligator snapping turtle weighing more than 20 jin with a ferocious nature.
The drizzle falls softly as Wu Guozheng sits on the other side of the desk brewing tea. On the wall behind him hangs a photograph of two bare-bodied children laughing with their mouths open, bearing some resemblance to Wu Guozheng. Above the photo also hang golden plaques reading "Zhaoqing City Farmer Professional Cooperative Municipal-Level Demonstration Unit" and "Guangdong Province Turtle and Soft-Shelled Turtle Breeding Industry Association Member Unit." The young man with short hair laughs heartily; he is the post-80s "overseas returnee" Wu Guozheng, raising tens of thousands of turtles and soft-shelled turtles, with annual sales reaching over ten million yuan.
He left home young to study in Beijing, then with great ambition went to study in North America, originally intending to showcase his talents abroad, yet ultimately returned to the countryside to keep company with turtles. The turns in Wu Guozheng's life path are unexpected, yet traces can be found.
Unable to let go of hometown ties, he decides to return to China to seek development
Wu Guozheng is from Dasha Town, Sihui City. His parents are genuine farmers, "with fish ponds, pigsties and orchards at home. My parents did whatever made money. The family had some money and lived well." Wu Guozheng said he had been running around the fields and farms with his parents since childhood, a true country boy. After graduating from high school he went to Beijing to study, majoring in accounting, a field that deals with money. As the only son in the family, Wu Guozheng left home young, and his parents often worried about him, though they did not stop his ambition to continue studying and seeking development. After graduating from university, Wu Guozheng decided to go to Canada to study. "The family's financial conditions allowed it, I had that plan myself, and some classmates around me also went abroad to study." This boy born in the countryside had the same opportunities as urban students. He did not give up, and with excellent grades he attended Vancouver Island University in Canada, majoring in business administration.
During his studies in Canada, his parents far away in Sihui often made overseas calls to Wu Guozheng, hoping he would return home soon after finishing his studies and not make the two elders worry too much. At this time Wu Guozheng was nearing his master's graduation and, like his classmates, was interning at various well-known foreign enterprises. He hoped to perform well and ultimately stay in Canada for development. "When I was interning at an accounting firm in Canada, I performed well and had a good chance of staying to work there. At the time I also planned to develop in Canada, but every time my parents called from home, thinking of the two elderly people with no one around to care for them, I began to hesitate." Wu Guozheng was torn at the time. The very reason he had the opportunity to study abroad was entirely due to his parents at home, but giving up everything abroad to return to the countryside and become a farmer made him feel aggrieved and unwilling.
After hesitating for a long period, Wu Guozheng finally made the decision to return to China. "The primary reason was still that I could not let go of my two parents at home." Wu Guozheng said that he had walked out from the countryside all the way, even out of the country, but his roots were in the countryside, and his backing was also in the countryside, where there were feelings he could not sever. Besides the deep hometown ties, another reason Wu Guozheng chose to return was to become wealthy, and working for others made it hard to become rich. "Working at a foreign enterprise is ultimately just making a living, always earning a salary to support oneself, working for others. If you want to make money and become wealthy, you can only work for yourself - do business." Wu Guozheng said that abroad he had no network of connections or resources, and it would be very difficult to build a career, while in his hometown he had geographical advantage and people's support, with great room for development.
The overseas returnee youth faces many hardships raising turtles
Around 2009, after returning to China, Wu Guozheng at first had not clearly considered which industry to enter. He initially wanted to do plastic recycling. "In developed countries, plastic recycling is a very profitable business. I thought that in China there might also be good market prospects." However, after a series of market investigations, Wu Guozheng found that the plastic recycling market had no room for development in Sihui. Wu Guozheng's idea seemed too simplistic: "Large investment, long profit recovery cycle." Wu Guozheng then tried opening a hot pot restaurant, but the homogeneous competitive situation also made him give up that plan. The blind plans at the beginning made this "overseas returnee" Wu Guozheng taste failure for the first time.
However, an accidental dinner gathering helped Wu Guozheng find his direction of development. "My father was eating with a business friend, and that friend said raising turtles and soft-shelled turtles is a good business now, because the market for high-end turtles is rising, profits are very high, and for large-scale farming, the breeding cost of one turtle is only 30 yuan." Wu Guozheng said he was present at the time and heard that friend mention another big advantage of raising turtles: "Turtles are not like other poultry or crops, which must be sold or harvested at a certain time, otherwise you miss the season and suffer losses. Turtles can be raised year-round, and the longer you raise them, the higher their value. If the market is bad this year, I just won't sell, and wait until the market is good next year to sell. Raising turtles can avoid market risks." So he began to get involved in the turtle farming industry.
When Wu Guozheng returned to China he had no savings, and all the initial investment costs for raising turtles and soft-shelled turtles came from his family. Regarding relying entirely on his family in the early stage of his career, he did not avoid it much, but regarded this, along with studying abroad, as his advantageous conditions. In the subsequent breeding process, he also repeatedly used his father's connections to solve problems. "This is one of the reasons I chose to return to China." Although Wu Guozheng was born with a "golden spoon," he also understood how to strive on his own.
In 2011, a batch of Chinese soft-shelled turtles he introduced successively showed symptoms of neck swelling and refusal to eat, and began dying every day. To treat the sick turtles, Wu Guozheng took the diseased Chinese soft-shelled turtles everywhere seeking medical help, from Foshan to Zhanjiang to Hainan Island. As long as he heard that similar turtle or soft-shelled turtle illnesses had appeared elsewhere, he would rush there immediately, hoping to find an effective remedy. During that period he traveled alone away from home, while also worrying that too many turtles and soft-shelled turtles at home would die and cause too great a loss. He was extremely anxious, worried all day, and the whole person grew thin. In the end, through Wu Guozheng's many efforts, he finally found an effective remedy and cured the soft-shelled turtles.
Now the farm exceeds one hundred mu and he has succeeded in becoming wealthy
Today Wu Guozheng raises various species of turtles and soft-shelled turtles, including high-end ornamental turtles such as the golden coin turtle and the stone gold turtle, as well as edible turtles such as the alligator snapping turtle. The farm area exceeds one hundred mu, output is around one hundred thousand jin, and annual sales have already exceeded ten million yuan.
From overseas returnee student to rural farmer, this change and gap in identity and role was not as easy for Wu Guozheng to accept as imagined. In the process of raising turtles, at the beginning the surrounding farmer breeders all waited to see him make a fool of himself, saying that an overseas returnee elite couldn't make it, especially when the soft-shelled turtle disease caused losses in 2011, when the farmers said he had studied so much and still couldn't get things done. Wu Guozheng at the time also somewhat doubted his own abilities, but he persisted. "I thought that at least I'm an 'overseas returnee,' how could this little difficulty stump me? I couldn't let these fellow townsmen I see every day look down on me. I could only work desperately." In Wu Guozheng one can see both the pride of an overseas returnee and, in his blood, the plain stubbornness and determination unique to farmers by birth.
After experiencing that test in 2011, Wu Guozheng turned misfortune into a blessing. In the process of treating the soft-shelled turtle disease, his techniques spread among the surrounding farmers, and the reputation of this "overseas returnee" also became resounding in the turtle farming industry. Since then, many surrounding farmers began learning turtle and soft-shelled turtle breeding techniques from Wu Guozheng and gradually switched to the turtle farming industry. Up to now, over one hundred surrounding farmers have embarked on the path to wealth through turtle and soft-shelled turtle breeding under Wu Guozheng's guidance and help.