the oyster coast

although histories of shenzhen often begin by reminding the reader that the city was once a small fishing village, nevertheless, the closest that most residents and visitors have come to the local fishing industry is on the yantian coast, where seafood restaurants crowd the space around the docks. in western shenzhen, the local fishing industry has been increasingly pushed away as the houhai land reclamation project moves the coastline closer to hong kong. this pushing increased at the turn of the millenium, when more upscale projects started reshaping local neighborhoods. however, it is only in the past two or three years, as the building projects have finished and new people moved in, that gentrification has successfully ousted most of the fishing industry. indeed, in the shadows and grind of a multi-building elite housing estate, i lost one of my favorite seafood restaurants, which had specialized in shellfish.

just beyond the the seaworld plaza, where nuwa holds up the sky, people gather to look at the ocean and the odd fishing boat. after breakfast, a friend and i walked down there; she to visit one of shenzhen’s well-known tourist sites, me to see if anything had changed. and it had. oyster farmers had occuppied the stretch of coast from nuwa toward rose garden estates and oyster shells now covered the area, creating the land for makeshift docks and oyster processing. in addition to harvesting oysters to sell throughout shenzhen, farmers were shelling and drying oysters to make oyster sauce, and then drying and grinding the shells to make a calcium supplement for animal feed. interestingly, many were not originally oyster farmers, but working on the boats for the season, after which they will look for other agricultural work.

pictures of seaworld’s other, here.