Growing bananas and playing guitar in his spare time, professional banana farmer Ye Zhixiong is happy and calm, and he has a secret
Making the rounds of the banana-growing area in Chaozhou, Pingtung, most bananas are still bagged. "Now is not yet the time when Pingtung bananas come out in force! It should still be another month!" the banana farmers all said in agreement. Last September a typhoon devastated the banana-growing areas of Kaohsiung and Pingtung. "At that time the bananas had just emerged with their flower spikes, and they were all knocked off." They had no choice but to start over; just as the bananas they had replanted were about to come out, the Agriculture and Food Agency warned a few days ago that by the end of June the banana price would fall to 12 yuan, causing the banana price (the farm-gate purchase price) to fall from over 50 yuan per 1 kg all the way to 20 yuan in just three or four days.
Faced with the banana price being "crashed" ahead of time, most banana farmers were furious; but Pingtung banana farmer Ye Zhixiong remained calm and composed, making his usual rounds of his banana plantation, cutting off the newly sprouted suckers; clearing the dead leaves from outside the banana trees; moving the four banana trees blown down by the previous night's wind and rain off to the side, and finally carrying over a small stool and sitting in his clean and tidy banana plantation, playing his guitar at ease. Watching the dark-skinned, lean Ye Zhixiong climbing up and down among the banana plantation, there was no sense of incongruity at all, but what is unexpected is that ten years ago he was actually a music professional.
"I studied at the Berklee College of Music in the United States, majoring in music engineering." After graduating he came back and went to work at the largest recording company in Taipei. After doing it for a few years, Ye Zhixiong found that this was not the life he wanted. "At that time I couldn't see the sun the whole year, and I didn't sweat much either." Seeing that many people in the industry eventually ruined their health and broke up their families, "I was very afraid that if I kept at it, this would be my fate too." Add to that the fact that computer tuning entered the market later, "making music was no longer art, but doing labor!" So he resolved to return to his hometown in Pingtung to grow bananas.
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The banana plantation becomes a concert hall, living the easy life
"My current production cost is basically the cost of banana seedlings at 12-15 yuan; the bamboo poles for fixing at 60 yuan each; large bunch bags at over 2,000 yuan per box; and plastic rope at 70 yuan per bundle." After calculating the costs, Ye Zhixiong still has no need to worry.
After estimating production costs, and confirming that the banana production quality and yield in his own plantation remain stable, and that he also has a stable export channel that purchases bananas at a fixed price 4 yuan higher than the domestic market price, Ye Zhixiong thus continues to live the easy life in his two-jia-seven banana plantation.
Besides taking care of bananas every day, when Ye Zhixiong saw his wife carry over a few chairs, set up the electronic keyboard that had originally been hidden away in the workroom, and improvise playing "Canon" among the banana plantation, he too got into the mood, grabbed the guitar placed on the stool with one hand, and added some rhythm to Canon; the spotlessly tidy banana plantation suddenly became the best concert hall, and this is the cozy life in the eyes of Ye Zhixiong and his wife.