Tag Archives: oysters

oyster update

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oyster coastline, july 2007

on june 4, 2007, in time for the opening of the western corridor bridge, the nanshan district argricultural bureau announced that it had successfully completed the “shekou dongjiaotou coastal fishing and oyster farmers cleanup (蛇口东角头海域渔蚝排的清理工作)”. in a city that otherwise presents itself as having no history, the cleanup heralds the end of an era. oysters have been farmed in nanshan for roughly 1,000 years. along with the nanshan sweet pear and lychees, oysters formed the “nanshan three treasures (南山三宝)”.

when i first came to shenzhen university, there were oyster farmers working the old houhai coastline. i walked out of the campus and looked to the horizon, where the binhai expressway was under construction. as the houhai land reclamation area grew, the oyster farmers were pushed further and further west. in july 2003, i photographed remnants of that community at dongjiaotou and seaworld. of course, the seaworld community followed the coastline further and further out, remaking the land (photographed in january 2007). now the few remaining oyster farmers live on boats, unable to set up homes and processing centers on land. inland, remnants of the former oyster coastline still lay at the feet of upscale shekou. so, pictures, again.

seaworld’s other: the itinerant oyster farmers

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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.