Frog Farming Sets Twin Brothers on the Path to Wealth

Show Highlights: Him and him, twin brothers raising frogs. They failed at frog farming and became the village's most notorious spendthrifts. A screaming-filled frog-catching contest. A thrilling frog adventure. Watch how twin brothers Cai Kai and Cai Cheng from Yueyang, Hunan Province, used frogs to rewrite their fate and achieve their dream of wealth.

On September 21, 2015, Daorenji Town in Yueyang, Hunan Province, had just seen a heavy rain come to an end. Around noon, the children were about to head home from school when suddenly, screams came from somewhere in the distance.

It turned out someone in the village had discovered a group of creatures nobody could identify. These things kept moving around, making the children very curious.

Child: No shell, it's not a turtle.

The children were a bit nervous and a bit scared. They carefully observed, and before long, they made a new discovery.

As soon as they heard there were lots of frogs over here, all the children ran over to crowd around and watch.

They had never seen so many frogs before, and today was truly an eye-opener. The children were so excited they jumped and bounced, running madly around the pond in circles, unable to stop.

The children's love-hate relationship with the frogs also amused Cai Cheng, the owner of this frog pond. Cai Cheng is 29 years old this year and is well known locally for raising frogs. Today, he is holding a frog-catching contest here. Whoever wins can not only enjoy a table full of frog dishes but also receive a cash prize from Cai Cheng.

Cai Cheng: It's ten past ten now, and catching must be finished by eleven. First place gets 500. Don't hurt the frogs, we need to ship them out of town. Go!

After the rules were announced, the contest officially began, and the children joined in as well.

Cai Cheng: Over here, don't hurt them, come on, give it to me, give it to me!

The frog-catching contest has no limit on the number of participants and no age divisions. To ensure quality, Cai Cheng stipulated that everyone could only use their hands to catch the large adult frogs.

However, frogs react quickly and hop everywhere the moment you get close, so everyone could only lunge wildly from the bank and grab frantically in the water.

Twenty minutes passed, and the frog pond was already in complete chaos.

Seeing everyone catching frogs so enthusiastically, Cai Cheng got interested too and prepared to join in himself. But before he could even start catching frogs, a dramatic scene unfolded on site.

Cai Cheng brought over someone who looked almost exactly like him.

Reporter: You two?

Cai Cheng: This is my brother, we're twins.

Reporter: Twins! Are you going to catch frogs together?

Cai Kai: Yes, over here, they're all in this grass.

Twins catching frogs, at first glance you really can't tell who is who.

Reporter: Which one is Cai Cheng?

Villager: The one in front is the older brother. I used to not be able to tell them apart either, only recently did I figure it out.

The younger brother Cai Cheng, the older brother Cai Kai, both brothers are skilled frog farmers, and when it comes to catching frogs they are evenly matched.

At this moment, everyone's attention was focused on this pair of twins, but there was less than 2 minutes left in the contest. So today, who would ultimately win the championship?

Cai Cheng: Twenty jin, the champion's twenty jin. Let me interview you, what tricks do you have for catching frogs?

This man caught 20 jin of frogs all by himself and won today's 500-yuan grand prize.

After handing out the prizes and ending the contest, Cai Cheng hurriedly set about delivering these frogs to nearby farmhouse restaurants. Besides the more than 300 jin of frogs that customers had pre-ordered, today Cai Cheng also had to prepare a frog feast for everyone.

Hunan people love eating frogs. Heat the oil in the wok until it's smoking, pour the frogs right in, flip them, stir-fry them, then add all kinds of chili peppers and seasonings, and the aroma of stir-fried frogs comes rushing to your nose.

There were braised ones, steamed ones, and ones braised in thirteen-spice seasoning, and everyone ate until they couldn't stop.

Diner: That frog meat is especially tender.

Locally, there are many ways to eat frogs, but what Cai Cheng likes best is this charcoal-grilled frog.

Take frogs that have been marinated in advance, keep them in one whole piece, thread them onto bamboo skewers, and place them side by side over the charcoal fire to grill for 5 minutes. Before long, the delicious frog meat starts sizzling and dripping oil. Unable to resist the temptation of the deliciousness, Cai Cheng eats while grilling, then sprinkles some chili and chopped scallions on top, and the flavor of the grilled frog becomes even more fragrant. Especially these frog legs, crispy on the outside and tender on the inside, immediately attracted everyone around.

To eat frogs, local farmhouse restaurants all have to place orders with Cai Cheng in advance. When business is good, it's often 4 or 5 hundred jin in a single day. Especially after the start of autumn, when frogs begin to hibernate, supply on the market becomes scarcer and scarcer, and many out-of-town customers come specifically because of his reputation.

Distributor: I'm from Yiyang, Hunan, and I've bought over a thousand jin. The frogs are all hibernating now, other places don't have any, but he does here.

Villager: Basket after basket going out, he's made it. Cai Cheng and Cai Kai are pretty impressive.

By raising frogs, Cai Cheng and his brother became the village's wealth-building talents. Not only did they generate more than 3 million in sales in just one year in 2014, they also set up a cooperative to lead everyone to prosperity together.

However, few people know that it was also these tiny frogs that made the brothers Cai Cheng and Cai Kai unable to hold their heads up in the village for a long time.

On September 21, 2015, when the reporter went to interview them, Cai Cheng took us to a wet and slippery field.

Reporter: What are you looking at?

Cai Kai: These are rice field eels. What we use to catch rice field eels is called a "hao."

Reporter: How would there be rice field eels in there?

Cai Cheng: We put earthworms inside, and they come back to eat them.

Reporter: So high-tech, I've never seen this before.

Cai Cheng: Right, this is professional, an upgraded version.

Reporter: Can you show me?

Cai Cheng: It fell in here, goes out from this side, comes out over there.

Back when life was hard, the brothers relied on this tool to catch rice field eels to make a living. Sometimes when they had no money to eat, they could only fill their stomachs with rice field eels.

Cai Cheng: Back then we didn't even have the money to buy a bottle of water, couldn't even afford the 2 yuan for mineral water. I often woke up in the middle of the night under the covers feeling hopeless, thinking there was no meaning to living in this world.

Cai Kai: I thought about suicide too, it's just that I never told him, and he never told me.

Recalling the hardships of those years, the brothers still feel deeply moved. So what exactly did they go through, and how did they use frogs to win wealth?

Cai Cheng was originally a fashion stylist and had opened a barbershop with a friend in Yueyang, Hunan Province. Business was booming, but in 2010, Cai Cheng suddenly had the whim to change careers and raise frogs.

It turned out that at that time, his twin brother Cai Kai was raising crayfish in their rural hometown. Once, when Cai Cheng accompanied his brother to the market to sell crayfish, he discovered that local frogs were in very short supply. Especially after the start of autumn, when frogs enter hibernation, prices climbed higher and higher, and demand exceeded supply. This excited him very much.