Why is Chen Huangqi called the Tilapia King

His entrepreneurial journey went through many hardships. Natural disasters and management mistakes turned his assets to nothing in an instant, and a contract renewal dispute nearly cost him the fishery he had run for many years. But in the end he still became the locally renowned Tilapia King. What story unfolded along the way?

Chen Huangqi (Source: Donggan CCTV)

February 18, 1996, was New Year's Eve of the Chinese lunar Year of the Pig, the most grand festival of the year for Chinese people. Every household gathers together for the New Year's Eve dinner, enjoying the happiness of family reunion. Yet Chen Huangqi, eating the New Year's Eve dinner at his home in Kaohsiung City, Taiwan, China, could not feel happy at all, and kept sensing that something was about to happen at his company in Nanning.

Chen Huangqi is a native of Kaohsiung City, Taiwan, China. In 1990 he went to the mainland to investigate investment, and set up an aquatic base covering 750 mu in Nanning City, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. It mainly breeds the seedlings of a tropical fish called tilapia.

Interview:

Chen: This is a monosex tilapia. It grows fast, generally in four or five months it can grow to more than two jin like this. It does not reproduce, has strong disease resistance, and is suitable for farming in our area. / Generally the largest are about two to three jin; what the processing plants on the market need is between one and a half and three jin, giving the best returns.

Because the broodstock Chen Huangqi introduced from Taiwan were of excellent variety, and combined with advanced management techniques, he quickly opened up sales channels on the mainland, and the tilapia fry he bred were in short supply. Local people all called him the "Tilapia King." Chen Huangqi's fry business also grew bigger and bigger. Always busy running the business, Chen Huangqi, apart from returning to Taiwan each year to negotiate business, would only go back to Kaohsiung to reunite with his family during the Spring Festival period. On New Year's Eve 1996, early in the morning, Chen Huangqi gave instructions for the work at the fishery, packed his luggage, and prepared to return to Taiwan to reunite with his family.

Interview:

Chen: I think it was the 12 o'clock flight; after getting there, the 4 o'clock flight back to Kaohsiung, Taiwan. At around 12 o'clock the wind started to rise; the temperature had not dropped yet, but the wind started, a very strong wind. At that time, we heard the weather report say that on New Year's Eve the temperature in Guangxi would drop, but we did not know by how much.

The tilapia Chen Huangqi farmed is a tropical fish, and the biggest weakness of this fish in farming is that it fears water temperatures that are too low. When Chen Huangqi left Nanning, affected by a cold wave, the temperature began to drop sharply. In less than two hours, the temperature in Nanning City had dropped by more than ten degrees. If the temperature continued to drop, it would affect the water temperature. And when the water temperature fell below 6°C, tilapia would die in large numbers. Chen Huangqi had no appetite at all for that New Year's Eve dinner; his mind was full of the farming base in Nanning. Right after finishing the New Year's Eve dinner, Chen Huangqi called the technician at the fishery to ask about the situation.

Interview:

At that time we called and asked him how the fish were doing. He said there should be no problem, that he saw the fish were still moving, meaning the fish should all still be normal, and he reckoned there was no problem. Although he had the technician's assurance, Chen Huangqi could never set his mind at ease, and he always had a foreboding that something would happen. Chen Huangqi decided to return to the fishery in Nanning immediately to see for himself.

Interview:

Chen: I kept worrying, so on the first day of the new year we immediately bought return tickets; the earliest we could book was a ticket for the fifth day, so we immediately bought the return tickets. Because he could not book a ticket, Chen Huangqi's trip was delayed until the fifth day of the new year. From the first day to the fourth day, every day Chen Huangqi had to contact the farm technician to keep track of the latest situation, and although each answer from the technician set Chen Huangqi's mind at rest quite a bit, he still vaguely felt that something was wrong.

Interview:

Chen: During this period I was in contact several times a day, calling back and forth, asking the staff here on the mainland, and he said it should be fine, and that he still saw the fish moving. On the first and second days we saw the water temperature was very low, but the fish were still moving. There should be losses, he said there might be some losses, but probably not too serious.

On the fifth day of the new year, Chen Huangqi boarded the plane to Nanning. As soon as he returned to the fishery, before he had even set down his luggage, he hurried to the fish ponds. But the scene before his eyes made his already anxious heart suddenly sink to rock bottom.

Interview:

Chen: When I got to the fish pond, they were already pulling out the fish; the whole pond was full of dead fish, all floating on the surface. My heart went cold looking at it. I thought maybe there were still ten thousand or so left, but when the pond was cleared, 36 remained; all the rest had died. It took two full days of continuous tractor loads to haul them all away, hauling those dead fish; each fish weighed two or three jin, 50,000 fish, nearly 200,000 jin, all dead. It was truly heartbreaking, heartbreaking; I felt utterly disappointed, with no hope left.

Why was the loss at the fish pond so severe? On the phone, the technician had clearly told Chen Huangqi that there were still fish moving, and said the loss would not be very big. What exactly caused the death of the tilapia? While Chen Huangqi was in Taiwan, what happened at the fishery?