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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. |