Aquaculture pioneer Liao I-chiu, who built a grass shrimp kingdom for Taiwan's fisheries

At eighty-five years old, Liao I-chiu faces the Pacific Ocean from his research room at National Taiwan Ocean University. For seventeen years, he has watched the tides rise and fall there, greeting his own advancing years.

The window of the research room cannot contain the boundless blue sky and sea, yet it frames a finite life. Around Mid-Autumn Festival, Liao I-chiu received news of the deaths of several old friends. Before the interview, he said without preamble: "I just can't make sense of it."

Can't make sense of what? Liao I-chiu said indignantly: "Bad people live long, and the ones who leave are all good people." The pioneer of the Tungkang Branch of the Taiwan Fisheries Research Institute, the foremost authority on grass shrimp research in Taiwan, an aquaculture expert who has won countless awards at home and abroad - after winning these proud titles with boundless perseverance, Liao I-chiu let out a powerless sigh and lament at fate.

Inspired by grandfather's fish pond and biology class, aquaculture research was his first choice

During the Japanese colonial period, Liao Chung-hsiung, the eldest son of the Fengyuan street chief, went to Tokyo to study, married Sato Setsuko, the daughter of the Taichung prefectural governor, in Japan, and subsequently had their first son, Liao I-chiu.

Born in Tokyo in 1936, Liao I-chiu did not return to his hometown of Fengyuan with his parents until he was four years old. The degree to which this eldest grandson of a political family was doted upon can be seen from the complete set of childhood photos. From a toddler learning to walk to a graceful youth, the Liao I-chiu in the photos carries both handsomeness and an air of refinement, his eyes revealing certainty and anticipation for a bright future.

After graduating from Taichung First Senior High School, Liao I-chiu was admitted to the Fisheries Biology group of the Department of Zoology at National Taiwan University as his first choice. His interest in aquaculture came from frequently watching fish swim in his grandfather's grass carp pond as a child, combined with the inspiration of his junior high and high school biology teachers, which made him even more certain of his interest in animal research.

The "Fisheries Biology group" had only thirteen students, and the classmates were very close, still keeping in touch over the years even now. However, the person he feels most grateful to is his lifesaver, Wang Yu-hsieh, the chairman of the Department of Zoology.

Entered elementary school at age 8 (provided by Liao I-chiu)

Attended the junior high division of Taichung First Senior High School (1949-1952) (provided by Liao I-chiu)

Saved from White Terror torture by department chairman Wang Yu-hsieh

Living in the student dormitory at university, Liao I-chiu worried about the country and its people together with like-minded friends. At the time, Chiang Kai-shek planned to run for president a third time. To create the illusion of "universal support," the government posted posters everywhere, even encroaching on the politically neutral university campus. To express views such as "not all Taiwanese support him" and "Chiang Kai-shek violated the constitution," Liao I-chiu drew a large X on a poster with a marker. That was the era of the White Terror. He was arrested on the spot by plainclothes police after his "offense," but he had long since made up his mind: "At worst, I'll go be an islander on Green Island."

Fortunately, department chairman Wang Yu-hsieh was on good terms with Chiang Ching-kuo and immediately pleaded for Liao I-chiu, saying "Do not torture my student." Liao I-chiu said: "Although I wasn't tortured at the time, they wouldn't let me sleep and kept interrogating me with sleep deprivation. I would have been fine if I just named my classmates, but I refused to betray anyone." How did he, in his twenties, endure it? He said: "I kept reasoning with them, saying that the Constitution stipulates that a president can only serve one consecutive re-election, and I said Hu Shih and Lei Chen could also be president." Unable to extract any actual evidence of subverting the government from the interrogation, Liao I-chiu was released after eight days in detention.

Later, Wang Yu-hsieh helped Liao I-chiu write a recommendation letter for studying abroad. Normally he would only have needed to sign a recommendation letter translated into Japanese, but Wang Yu-hsieh, who did not know Japanese, actually copied out a Japanese recommendation letter by hand, "tracing" it exactly. "He loved his students to such a degree - that's truly remarkable!" Liao I-chiu said.

Won a scholarship to study in Japan and mastered complete tiger prawn farming techniques

Liao I-chiu's goal in studying abroad was simple: the best, most rigorous school. He studied under Professor Oshima Yasuo at the University of Tokyo, and both his master's and doctoral theses researched tiger prawns' food preferences and feeding behavior. He once went seven days and nights without going to bed. Afterward, he went to the "Tiger Prawn Research Room" of Fujinaga Motosaku, a giant of Japan's shrimp farming world, to conduct postdoctoral research on artificial shrimp breeding, gaining a comprehensive understanding of shrimp farming.

Liao I-chiu said that when he went to Japan to study, it was precisely during Japan's post-war reconstruction period. Prime Minister Ikeda proclaimed the slogan of "doubling income" for Japan, and various scientific research efforts were in full swing. Liao I-chiu learned "in sync" with Japan's top scholars, and later transferred the entire set of tiger prawn farming techniques to Taiwan. His rapid achievements in grass shrimp research were all thanks to the solid training he received during his time studying in Japan.

Invited back to Taiwan to serve, encountered difficulties right away finding broodstock shrimp

After studying abroad for six and a half years, the Joint Commission on Rural Reconstruction (predecessor of the Council of Agriculture) used grant funds from the Rockefeller Foundation to invite Liao I-chiu to return to Taiwan for a post. He said that when he left Haneda Airport on July 21, 1968, his colleagues at the University of Tokyo wrote "Long live Dr. Liao" on an old lab coat to see him off; on the same day, after his plane landed at Songshan Airport, the people of Fengyuan also pulled out red banners to welcome him. These warm gestures made him know that he carried everyone's expectations on his shoulders, and he became even more eager to put his learning to use on this land that had raised and nurtured him.

Unfortunately, although he was ordered to plan and establish the Tungkang Branch of the Taiwan Fisheries Research Institute, land acquisition still needed negotiation with the military at the time, so Liao I-chiu first reported to the Tainan Branch. It was pouring rain on the day he reported. To reach the fish ponds he had to walk a very long muddy road. "That day I wore rain boots, and with every step, the rain boots sank into the mud, and I had to expend all my strength to lift them and keep going," he recalled. "At the time I thought, if the first day of work is like this, I'm afraid the road ahead won't be easy either."

Strangely, this thought seemed to inoculate Liao I-chiu. Whenever he encountered any difficulty afterward, he would think of that rainy day and those rain boots. This small matter became a force that supported him, giving him courage to face the many hard trials that followed.

For example, obtaining broodstock shrimp was the first hurdle. Liao I-chiu went to the Tungkang fish market to look for grass shrimp broodstock, but everything sold at the market was dead shrimp. Fortunately, Lin Chin-sheng, a director of the Tungkang Fishermen's Association, promised to help him find live broodstock. Afterward, they communicated by telegram and arranged to meet at Tainan Railway Station to make the delivery.

Lin Chin-sheng placed a female shrimp carrying eggs in a bucket and transported it by bicycle to Tainan. Perhaps because the journey was too bumpy, the shrimp had "escaped" at some point! Lin Chin-sheng looked as if he wanted to cry but had no tears, and the ever-optimistic Liao I-chiu comforted him.

Later, after searching extensively, Liao I-chiu finally found broodstock shrimp as he had hoped. Two of them successfully bred the first batch of artificially bred grass shrimp fry, leading the world. From fertilized egg division, hatching, metamorphosis, all the way to rearing into small shrimp fry, Liao I-chiu filmed the entire process, leaving precious research records.

Working tirelessly to build a grass shrimp kingdom

After the military released the land for the Tungkang Branch, Liao I-chiu went to Tungkang to take up his post, only to learn that the so-called "branch" was just a stretch of beach at a seawater bathing area, and the only building was a tiny changing room! At first, all experimental research and daily life were carried out in that small space. It was not until winter and summer vacations brought interns that they dug sand to make ponds and built farming environments, and afterward gradually secured funding, so that various software and hardware fell into place one by one.

Liao I-chiu's main contributions to grass shrimp farming were twofold: he introduced the technique of artificial breeding and also promoted intensive farming methods, building Taiwan's reputation as the "Grass Shrimp Kingdom."

After grass shrimp mate, the female stores sperm in a "spermatheca," and when spawning she automatically releases the sperm so that sperm and eggs fertilize in the water. A single broodstock shrimp can lay as many as 400,000 eggs, and larger ones not uncommonly lay nearly a million eggs at once. The shrimp eggs hatch after about fourteen hours, and after passing through growth and metamorphosis stages including nauplius, zoea, mysis, postlarva, juvenile shrimp, and adult shrimp, they can be stocked in ponds and sold after three or four months.

Before Liao I-chiu introduced farming techniques, Taiwan's grass shrimp were mostly caught in the wild, and the survival rate of shrimp eggs was difficult to control. But Liao I-chiu controlled the breeding water temperature, seawater salinity, and feed at every stage from egg to adult shrimp - for example, zoea eat diatoms, mysis eat brine shrimp, and juvenile shrimp consume fish paste - and adjusted feed delivery according to molting conditions, weather, and other factors. These scientific techniques greatly increased the number of shrimp eggs successfully reared.

In the past, fishermen mixed grass shrimp fry into milkfish ponds, and grass shrimp were merely a byproduct raised along the way. But Liao I-chiu promoted intensive monoculture of grass shrimp: selecting suitable sites to build farming ponds, using plastic pipes to draw in seawater, adding aeration equipment to increase dissolved oxygen, and then farming in stages according to fry size. The larger the size, the easier they were to raise, making high-density rearing possible. At the same time, he also established procedures based on scientific data for each stage - pond clearing, water filling, stocking, harvesting - so that shrimp farmers could follow suit.

Since the success of artificial grass shrimp breeding in 1968, Liao I-chiu continuously invested in feed research and development and other farming technology research, allowing the grass shrimp industry to advance rapidly. In 1987, the value of grass shrimp production reached its peak: 95,000 metric tons, accounting for about one-fifth of the world's farmed shrimp at the time, earning Taiwan the title of "Grass Shrimp Kingdom."