Yilan eel ponds stop raising eels, switch to aquatic plants to create new vitality
Text and photos / Zhang Yayun
Yilan has abundant underground springs, and with rainwater from the Xueshan and Central Mountain Ranges converging into the Lanyang River, the Lanyang Plain enjoys plentiful water resources. Yuanshan Township, nestled among the mountains and at the water source, is an especially water-rich treasure. Springs flow through the township, forming clear channels and ponds of all sizes that irrigate farmland and nurture a unique local industry.
[Changes in Farming Families and Local Industry]
Because Japanese people love eating eel, exporting eels to Japan was highly profitable. During the period from 1967 to 1981, when Taiwan's eel farming industry flourished, Xu Zhixiong's father, Xu Yiwen, co-founded "Xiexing Eel Farm" with friends in 1967. Thanks to Yuanshan Township's abundant underground water, high mineral content, and clean, unmuddy water quality, the Xu family's eels earned a reputation for having "no earthy taste." Xu Zhixiong said that some Japanese customers would buy fish from other farms and then board them at his family's farm, waiting ten days or half a month until the earthy taste was gone before shipping them back to Japan.
In pursuit of quality, Xu Yiwen and his partners bought more and better equipment than other eel farms. Although they paid more than double the price, the returns far exceeded the initial investment. When Xu Zhixiong was born in 1970, the family's eel farming had reached a stage of steady profit, and the Xu family was even the first in the village to own a color television.
Born into a farming family, Xu Yiwen still required his children to participate in household affairs. As a child, Xu Zhixiong and his younger brother Xu Huixiong were called by their parents to the edge of the eel ponds to help sort eels of different sizes and help count money. In an era without thousand-dollar bills, buying fish was a cash transaction, and "counting money" was heavy work. The two brothers each handled one denomination, counting how many bills there were, and after tallying everything they handed it to the adults to add up. If the total was wrong, they had to start over. But what the two brothers really had in mind was finishing quickly so they could go play and catch fish thieves.
Even during the heyday of eel farming, the Xu family had long been diversified. Besides raising eels, they also raised golden clams. The nostalgic farm experience now popular at leisure farms, "digging clams while washing your pants," was the first task Xu Zhixiong and his brother did after school in their childhood.
