Wen-shih (stones with pleasing streaks or mottles)

Coral exploitation industry  ˇü  Gherkin(Sour Oriental pickling melon)

  name of industryˇG Coral exploitation industry
  industry categoryˇG Fishery
  descriptionˇG

The coral exploitation in Penghu started in Chaohe 9 of Japanese-occupied period (1934). A Chiangchunao fisherman, Yu Kou accidentally hooked up a coral when fishing near the southwest sea area of Penghu Great Islet (Chimei Islet). It caused Japanese a great attention that they founded an organization to investigate further and started to exploit officially the year later. The following fishing boat for coral exploitation hired a lot of crews from Chaingchunao. In Chaohe 13 (1938), as effected by war, the business of coral picking and netting was stopped. Until the time before or after R.O.C 55 (1966), there were Japanese who rented Tahao fishing boat with crew in Chiangchunao and went for exploitation in the sea area of south Hong Kong and the yield was not bad. In the next year Shuenying fishing boat joined in the business. After Japanese left, these two fishing boats therefore exploited by themselves and great achievements. Considering the high price and profit of coral, bigger fishing boats over 45 horsepower in Chiangchunao all re-equipped to join in the coral picking and netting operation one after another. After RO.C 65 (1976), the business transformed to a profession from concurrent job and the operation area was extending from inshore to deep sea. The years around R.O.C 70 (1981) was the peak of Chiangchun Villageˇ¦s coral fishery development. In the years around R.O.C 78 (1989), coral fishery was impacted and decreased because of the resistance of importing coral that belonged to conservation-needed animals in USA. However, there are still few fishing boats doing the exploiting operation. Coral has a variety of colors. However, only deep red, peach read, pink and white color corals have economical values. Among them, deep red ones have the highest value, and white ones have the biggest amount and bad quality therefore the cheapest price. In the old times, coral was an auspicious sign. The light was not too bright and the color was gentle and moist so that the jewelry and accessories made of coral was loved very much by ladies and the experts of collection also have great favor on the coral sculpture works.

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