Hsien-Hsi Township is located windward, at end of stream, and the west is close to Taiwan Strait. Before Changhua Coastal Industrial Park has developed, the west of expressway has been immense tidal land, when the tide was in, the land would be overwhelmed. It was remote, near the sea, the soil wasn’t rich, and northeast monsoon was strong, so it only had a phase rice harvest; in this way, residents were engaged in other farming to make money. Early in 1960s, it was thriving for residents to breed ducks as by-work, and the quantity could reach more than a million at high noon.
1. Geographic Environment & Crowd SettlementWhy was it popular to breed ducks in Hsien-Hsi? It was a tract of new tidal land before, and residents took advantage of ebb and flow to breed ducks. At that time, it could be seen that every duck farmer worked hard to chase ducks in country, and it became another settlement gradually. Some thought the profit for breeding duck is good, others followed to be engaged in the same industry, and duck breeding gained popularity among Hsien-Hsi residents. During 1690s to end of 1980s, it was the high noon for duck breeding in Hsien-Hsi and quantity could be over a million; egg duck, breed duck, and meat duck all could make good earnings.
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2. The Birth of Duck Egg KingdomThe film company shot a movie, “Beautiful Duckling,” winning Best Director Award and other big awards of Golden Horse Awards, it was a hit in Taiwan at that time, and some scenes were shot in Hsien-Hsi. Why did it shoot in Hsien-Hsi? The reason was easy. The reputation for breeding duck spread to other counties around 1960, and they called Hsien-Hsi as “Kingdom of Duck Breeding.” At this moment, the duck breeding reached a peak time to have good performance in production value, and it was the key point that villages in Hsien-Hsi became rich.
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3. Pollution
The toxic duck egg incident broke out in June 2005. It was found that the dioxin content in eggs was over average, except hundreds of thousands of ducks and eggs were destroyed, the government asked the duck farmers to take a rest after incident, and investigated into this affair; however, this incident caused great harm on economy for the past glorious “Duck Egg Kingdom.”
4. Extinction
Many years later, and the time has changed. However, the duck farmers got old, their children weren’t willing to take over the business, and the markets were moved to other places, so these reasons caused the duck farms be shut down door by door. Besides, residents in Hsien-Hsi were fearful since they found that they exposed to Dioxin hidden in somewhere they didn’t know; residents in other place, thinking the produce and farming goods might contain dioxin, dared not buy them because of this incident. In the end, the duck breeding in Hsien-Hsi became extinct.
Reference (Traditional Chinese Websites)
- 毒鴨蛋事件 - 維基百科,http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%AF%92%E9%B4%A8%E8%9B%8B%E4%BA%8B%E4%BB%B6
- 【廣播】憶葛香亭…從〈養鴨人家〉談起 - 玩世界‧沒事兒,http://miss-suzi.blogspot.tw/2010/06/blog-post_5185.html
- 2005環境事件簿,台灣環境資訊中心,http://e-info.org.tw/node/1075