01
“Come on, go upstairs and see the pigeons you have. “
After eating lunch at the round table in the restaurant on the second floor, a large group of us went up to the top of the sixth floor. Today was the day when my great-uncle’s family did the year-end wine, so our family of four sat at a small half round table, plus my great-uncle’s eldest daughter’s cousin Wen Wen had just gotten engaged and brought her husband back from overseas, so the atmosphere seemed more lively than in previous years.
Mom has two younger brothers, and my two uncles live in the town post office across the street from the two small buildings, two next to each other, the second floor and the top of the sixth floor open, two rooms downstairs on the street to rent to others to open a cell phone store. Grandmother only in the open second floor each has a small room, it seems that the two come and go freely, in fact, do not interfere with each other. Since 2018, my great-uncle has been raising pigeons on the sixth floor of his home for three years. That year, he failed to do business in Yunnan and brought back only 10 pigeons.
Walking out from the sixth floor balcony and going up another floor of stone steps, a foul smell came to his nose – the smell of pigeons.
A look, a floor-high pigeon cage has taken up more than half of the roof, which holds more than a hundred gray pigeons. Six sides are surrounded by thin wire pigeon cage from the ground about sixty centimeters, pigeon cage and the ground in the middle of some coarse earth and stone sand blocks, from the cage to the ground, everywhere stained with dense white bird droppings. Most of them had a fat pigeon sitting in the nest like a lazy man’s sofa, with its neck hunched in the fat of its body, looking like it was peacefully hatching eggs or just lazily resting. There are also two pigeon couples huddled in a nest, occasionally kissing each other’s bodies or faces with their mouths.
In the cage, the flight of the pigeons is limited to a distance of one or two meters, and after a flutter of wings they hasten to land with their paws outstretched, as if to prevent hitting the cage head on. A pigeon’s life span is about a dozen years. Except for the ten old pigeons sent from Yunnan, most of them were born and grew up in this tiny cage, probably unaware that they were originally birds that could fly hundreds or even thousands of kilometers and soar hundreds of meters into the sky.
It is surprising that this space of more than twenty square meters and two and a half meters high can hold more than a hundred pigeons, which, if placed in Beijing, would cost at least 5,000 yuan a month for the same volume of room. They look like a copy-paste of a pigeon, like black eyes set into the head, thin flesh-colored claws, and a neck with a rendered gradient blue, mixed with purple, gray, black and red in the middle. But a closer look reveals subtle differences in plumage and coat color. Some pigeons have spot-like patches of blue color on their gray bodies, while others have neatly striped blue lace, but unless educated, it is difficult for the layman to make an aesthetic judgment across species.
Most people are not interested in raising or racing pigeons unless they see it in news reports with “multi-million dollar prizes”, “billionaires “billionaire”, “buying a house “buy a house” and other words. In domestic news reports, the sport, which originated in Belgium, presents a grand number and is often associated with special days and places, such as New Year’s Day, National Day and Beijing. Two years ago, at noon of the National Day, 70,000 peace pigeons took off from Tiananmen Square, collected by the Beijing Pigeon Association from more than 2,000 ordinary households in 16 districts and counties of Beijing. The GPS function of the foot rings and the pigeon coaches in the pigeon race show the professionalism of the race. The huge amount of prize money and the “foreign taste” from abroad increase the attractiveness of pigeon breeding itself. Last year, a European pigeon that was auctioned off by a Chinese buyer for more than 10 million RMB was in the news and pigeons once became a symbol of the rich.
According to a report by China Newsweek, in the last decades of China’s “booming pigeon industry”, the Chinese Pigeon Association issues more than 25 million foot rings with the meaning of a pigeon’s ID card every year. In the last decades of China’s “booming pigeon industry”, the Chinese Pigeon Association has issued more than 25 million foot rings each year, which is more than half of the world total. But apparently, most of the rings go to countless families of ordinary people all over the country. They dream that their pigeons may one day win the prize that will make them “rich overnight”.
This dream sounds like only a dream.
02
My great uncle started raising pigeons in 2018.
In that year, he was not doing a good distribution box business in Liaoning, and heard a friend say that the distribution box was making money in Yunnan, so he threw the semi-finished products and plant to his brother-in-law who had a store in the same place, and went to Yunnan alone with all the equipment. But within a few months, the brother-in-law returned home alone, bringing back only 10 pigeons sent by a friend. The friend was the one who called him to Yunnan to do business there. When my brother-in-law and mother secretly asked about the equipment and goods in Yunnan, my brother-in-law just laughed and said vaguely, “I gave it all to my friend”.
Three years later, the area of the cage had expanded four or five times, and the number of pigeons had grown from 10 to more than 100. This is not a fast pace. He bought the cage materials from the market and built the cage by himself on the roof of the sixth floor.
The roof of the sixth floor is a space shared by the two brothers, and when Grandpa was still alive more than ten years ago, Grandma started to use it as a courtyard to grow vegetables, filled with foam or plastic cartons with black soil inside. Such a cramped space can grow fat tomatoes and eggplants, and a cabbage can fill a bucket. The pigeons crowded out most of my grandmother’s vegetable patch, but I heard no complaints from her or my brother-in-law.
Seeing my curiosity, my great-uncle energetically introduced me, “Want to go in and take a look? “
I skimmed my lips and let out a long hesitation. I was afraid of getting covered in pigeon feathers and odor, and even more afraid of pigeons suddenly pooping on my head. My great uncle asked several more times and finally said, “Then I’ll go in and get one for you to see. “
He opened one of the doors of the cage to a small gap and moved in slowly on his side so that one of the pigeons would not escape at will. The worry was apparently superfluous, and the pigeons seemed to be in their places. The first uncle, nearly one meter eight, stood in the pigeon cage, with his head still more than half a meter wide, walking freely.
“I’ll take two small pigeons to show you first. “Great uncle crouched down next to a small pigeon cage at the bottom of the cage, reaching out to try to take out the nest, “look at you, this pigeon mother will also hit me with the wings, the protection of the calf. “
Uncle explained while looking towards us to make sure our attention was on him. The mother pigeon did occasionally flap her wings and knocked off the hand Uncle had extended, but I suspect she was just trying to stretch her muscles once in a while. Uncle then took the mother pigeon out with both hands and took out the nest with the two young pigeons and showed it to us at the cage.
I looked through the cage, the two little flesh-pink creatures in the nest, the grey wrapped around the bones of scattered feathers as if they were some undeveloped organs, and the eyes were not yet open. “So it’s only been three days and the pigeons have grown that big. “
I remembered the pigeon eggs that my great uncle usually gave to our family, a small one lying in the palm of my hand, only half the size of my thumb, unlike eggs and duck eggs, pigeon eggs peeled crystal clear, from the egg white directly you can see the goose yellow yolk. Pigeon eggs are more expensive, and locally in Wenzhou, they are regarded as a more nutritious tonic, and are cooked with cinnamon and red dates and silver ears to make a sweet soup for women who are having their first month or for the sick. For my grandmother, the advantage of my great uncle raising pigeons was that he could give the pigeon eggs laid by his family to the younger ones. Our family would not only receive pigeon eggs from my great uncle’s family occasionally, but also the soup made from whole pigeons occasionally. The pigeons would not let anyone take their eggs away, so my brother-in-law prepared a small box of plastic fake eggs and put them in the nest to trick the mother pigeon in order to successfully take the real eggs. My uncle giggled as he talked about the process of taking the eggs, as if pigeons were a silly living thing.
“So how do you feed the newborn pigeons? “
Great uncle told me that after the mother pigeon has eaten on her own, she can regurgitate it and feed it with her mouth, “Look! ” he pointed to a mother pigeon on the nest with her head down feeding her young with her beak. Grandmother interjected, that is, feeding with her mouth.
My great-uncle held out another pigeon to show me and put it in his arms, spreading its wings with one hand: “This is my 11th place pigeon, and look at the stamp on the wings. The blue lace of this pigeon was unfolded like a delicate fan with a blue pattern on a gray background, and a little red ink mark could be seen on it, which was probably the stamp my uncle mentioned. On the other wing was a blue mark, with a number ring on the right foot and a ranking ring on the left foot. All the pigeons had rings on the right foot, and my great uncle took out a small plastic bag of rings and told me that they were officially issued by the Chinese Pigeon Association and that each pigeon had a number.
In 2020 it was the first time that my great uncle went to the pigeon race, in the city section at the higher level of the town. He brought 20 pigeons, one pigeon 100 RMB entry fee and paid a total of 2,000 RMB. When I asked if the pigeons would get sick, my uncle told me with a smile that last year, all 19 of his pigeons died because they were infected by other pigeons, leaving only this one hen, which finally brought him the 11th place trophy and 1000 RMB prize money. If we don’t count the travel and labor costs, my great uncle lost 1000 RMB for this race, but he won a trophy. He held the trophy out to me and showed me the glass body topped with plastic pigeons painted in gold paint. He wrote my name wrong, my name is Xu Lejin, but it was written as Xu Jinle. ” said my great uncle, pointing to the golden nameplate at the base of the trophy.
First cousin Wen Wen cold: “I thought you were a pigeon to take to the race and earn 900 yuan, that’s not bad. “
“Here, here, take a picture of your great uncle. “Mom added fuel to the fire, “the name is written wrong, the name should not be photographed to. “
I leaned back in an attempt to get my great-uncle in the picture with the trophy, only to find that in the picture, my great-uncle’s white hair jumped out densely from his black hair, showing an even gray color, consistent with the black duvet tone, and reminding me of the color of the fur of the pigeons he kept. Great-uncle is fifty years old and has been a drinker since his youth, his face always flushed, as if filled with the blood of alcohol at all times, and smiling, a mouthful of yellow and black big smoky teeth. Younger uncle also smoked and drank when he was young, but later took the initiative to quit for the sake of his body. But not the eldest uncle, this is the addiction he can not quit.
Fifty years old, for a man who grew up in the countryside and has done small business all his life, is not really suitable to start a new business. Raising pigeons is just a hobby for him.
03
I asked my great uncle where he learned about pigeon breeding.
He said carelessly, just look at the public number, and fast hand, fast hand there are pigeon net red by live selling money, selling pigeons, hundreds of thousands of dollars a month is not a problem. “I wouldn’t expect to make a fortune. I can give me small tens of thousands is good. I do not have that ambition. “
The voice of my uncle suddenly lowered, as if revealing what business secrets, “such as your English pass well, you go to the Netherlands, and pigeon breeding contact, 20% of the middle fee, its pigeons are tens of thousands of tens of thousands, millions of millions. “He recommended me a few fast number, Tangshan Kaier Xing total, Beijing One pigeon loft Zhang Bin.
The great uncle is full of confidence. There is already a friend who ordered 20 pigeons from him for a total price of 3,000 yuan. The friend paid a deposit of 1,000 yuan and let him offset the remaining cost first in a pigeon food store of a relative.
The room on the sixth floor had a boiling water kettle and a row of pigeon health products on the floor. The first uncle said that there are toxic substances in the tap water and only give the pigeons cooled boiled water. Imported health care products look like laundry detergent, with a lot of English printed on it, there are deep-sea cod liver oil, Sainan phosphorus calcium liquid, liver essence quick supplement, etc., with nano small molecule calcium, EPQ + brain gold a chemical term; another class of Chinese herbal-type health care products are packed in a short fat cylinder plastic box, in the form of powder, the formula has wild ginseng, ganoderma lucidum, seahorse, cordyceps and other Chinese herbs. On Taobao, the price is not expensive, a few dozen dollars a bottle can be used for a month, even if the expensive is hundreds.
I searched the public articles of pigeon breeding in WeChat, there are such things as “4 abilities that pigeon breeders should have” “Don’t believe in pseudoscience”, “What we lack in pigeon breeding is patience “, “Pigeons must be raised according to their ability”, “Pigeons must be raised according to their ability”, “Pigeons must be raised according to their ability”. The headlines “If you don’t know these things about pigeon farming, you are out of date” seem to put The word “pigeon breeding” seems to be replaced by the word “cat breeding “, “raising children” The word “success” is not incongruous.
My great-uncle treats pigeons as if they were his own children, or even better.
Every second day of the first month of the Lunar New Year and the Mid-Autumn Festival, from the time I can remember to the time I went away to school, my mother took our family to my uncles’ house, and we always ate in the dining room half of my brother-in-law’s house, and after the meal, we went upstairs to the living room to drink tea and watch TV, while my great-uncle usually came from next door in his pajamas, full of smoke and sleepy eyes.
The few times I went upstairs to see my brother-in-law, I always padded my feet and carried my pant legs, as if I was afraid of getting something on them. The stairs were always dark without slippers, and when I glanced into the room with slanted eyes, I could see the nest on the floor and the clothes climbing freely – we and my brother-in-law’s family slept on high Simmons beds, while my brother-in-law’s bedroom was a tatami mat that crouched on the floor. As a child, I was tired of sleeping on Simmons beds, so I thought tatami mats were a novelty. That day when I offered to go to the roof to take a look, I realized that I had never voluntarily wanted to walk around my great-uncle’s house.
My great-uncle barely bothered with Wen, and even during the years when he went out of town on business, he only took his youngest daughter out of town, while Wen stayed in the local area to study. Wen Wen is two years younger than me, not very good grades, was bought by my great aunt to the city’s key boarding school at great expense, and I was the same room. When I was in high school, my father always drove me home or to school, while Wenwen took the bus home by herself every time. The family environment allowed her to be socialized and “get it” earlier.
However, in the view of parents in Wenzhou, the future of their children depends more on their own “whether they study hard”. My great-uncle once earnestly asked Wen to go to college at the dinner table, but my older cousin ended up going to a nursing school in a neighboring city. At the end of last year, my mother suddenly told me that Wen Wen was engaged to a boy from Shandong, which surprised me. For a traditional Wenzhou family, it seemed too easy for my great-uncle’s family to accept such a foreign son-in-law. Wen Wen is 22 years old and has settled in Ningbo with her husband.
04
I asked my great uncle to visit the city’s pigeon association, but he told me that the city pigeon association was not in the city, but in the town. The car crossed the field and drove into the village path. The pigeon association’s hut was in the middle of the field, opposite the town’s 17th middle school. A small courtyard was set up in front of the hut, with some ornamental flowers and plants, and a breed of dog was caged in a cage and turned around.
“President Zheng, this is my niece. “We pushed our way into the smoky room, where several men sat around the tea table drinking tea and smoking at the same time. A bald, middle-aged man with slanted eyes and a crooked mouth sat at the tea-making seat, moving skillfully to make tea, reminding me of a certain gangster. He was President Zheng.
“If you have any questions, just ask Chairman Zheng. “The great uncle politely handed a cigarette to each person, dropped these words, and walked away into the backyard. I held my breath and sat down stiffly opposite President Zheng.
“This pigeon breeding association is …… started in how many years? ” I finally held my breath and asked in a whisper in a stuttering dialect. I think I sounded like an outsider imitating Wenzhou dialect. President Zheng did not look at me, boiled water, hot cup, handed over a cup of tea.
Yueqing Pigeon Breeders Association was established in 1988, there were only 27 members that year, including President Zheng and the Secretary General sitting on my left. More than thirty years later, the association has grown to more than 190 people, “a lot more ah! ” said President Zheng. Indeed, it counts six or seven times more.
The main function of the association is to organize the annual pigeon flight race, the same race that my great-uncle had participated in before. The room was filled with pigeon food, plastic boxes, and a large cage with a green parrot, and a bamboo cabinet in the corner was filled with President Zheng’s trophies, which were identical to the one at my uncle’s house, except for the name and ranking on the trophy.
I speculated about the association’s annual income, in addition to the entry fees for the pigeon flight competitions, and the official release of pigeon anklets. The rings are also divided into real and fake, fake rings are sold online or in the general flower and bird market for only 3-5 yuan, while the pigeons participating must wear the exchange sold by the association, which ranges from hundreds to thousands of yuan according to the race specifications. The anklets are like human ID cards, marking each pigeon with a number, except that they can be sold ahead of time, and my great uncle has a large bag of anklets at home that have not yet found their owner. With the different sizes of anklets, the pigeons are divided into three, six and nine classes. And how much it costs to raise pigeons varies from person to person, just as parents are willing to spend different amounts of money on raising children. There are good and bad pigeon food, good and bad pigeon cages, and there are many different kinds of nutrients. The world of pigeons, like the world of people, is not equal.
President Zheng told me that pigeon breeding is a kind of sport, which has an official registration in the country, and the registered pigeon breeding association not only has an approved office, but also gets the power to give a person the legal right to breed pigeons, and this power includes the sale of anklets, including the necessary office. The lone two-story cabin built on the side of the road in the field is obviously not a private residence, but the backyard borders the field, and President Zheng has built a two-story pigeon coop that covers 30 square meters. President Zheng raised more than 160 pigeons last year, plus the ones to be born next month, there will be more than two hundred in total. He talked about his pigeons with a proud face.
President Zheng told me that some people even have thousands of pigeons at home. But the number is not the point, the key has to be the flying ability. “How do you develop flight ability? ” I asked.
“This has to do with the breed, the way of raising, the door is very big na. “But from President Zheng’s words, I still can’t imagine how those pigeons locked in cages learn to fly. The great uncle usually never opens the cage, and those pigeons born here fly over the highest distance of only two meters. According to the uncle’s description, the racing pigeons rely on the “nesting complex” of the pigeons. Only the pigeons born here are able to fly back after they are released. Every year for the city race, all the pigeons are sent by their owners, put into cages in big trucks and driven to Nanjing. They need to fly back to the city from Nanjing, a distance of more than 600 kilometers. If the weather and wind are right, the fast pigeons only take five or six hours. There are also pigeons that may never fly back.
According to President Zheng, most of the pigeon breeders are just out of interest, have time, capital (money) and space, and range in age from a dozen to eighty years old. “It seems that basically all are men? ” I asked.
Apparently. Although President Zheng answered as if he was considering the topic for the first time. The Yueqing Pigeon Breeders Association is only open on Sundays, and throughout the afternoon, a few men sit around drinking tea, smoking, chatting and passing the time. For the men in the town, once they reach retirement age, there is nothing to keep them busy in life: the women are in charge of their homes, while they need to maintain their established relationships or find new ways to socialize outside the home.
Raising pigeons is the right kind.
05
When it comes to pigeon breeders in Beijing, my great uncle’s face is full of longing. “The best pigeons are now in China. “
“Why? “
“The Chinese are rich, they buy all the pigeons in the world. Just give money to the place. “
In this small town in the southeast, my uncle still had a mythical yearning for the political and economic center, even in the matter of pigeon breeding. I saw the professional pigeon breeder “Master Lei of Beijing” reported in the news, standing in a large, clean, open wooden pigeon loft with the sun shining above his head. It was completely different from the iron cages covered with pigeon droppings and feathers that I saw on the sixth floor of my great uncle’s house. Master Lei opened the windows of the loft every day, cleaned it, cleaned the pigeon hair so that it wouldn’t affect the pigeons’ breathing, and hired a professional pigeon racing coach. What the men in this town need more than anything else is perhaps a Sunday afternoon smoke with a few friends.
Pigeon racing is like buying a lottery ticket, even after a lifetime of buying, the best you can do is a bag of laundry detergent. Great-Uncle also needs to find something to do outside of the lottery that has a better chance of success. My brother-in-law had just rented two factories in town, one for press molding and one for waterproof boxes for electrical outlets, and asked my brother-in-law to help.
Brother-in-law is 50 years old. There is no business, just a living.
References
Shrimp Qide, “The pigeon jungle with hundreds of millions of prizes: what does a pigeon worth 10 million dollars look like?
ELLEMEN Rui Shi, “The pigeons that cost 10 million are the addiction of domestic tycoons”.
The price of Chinese racing pigeons is soaring: a champion pigeon can be sold for 3 million dollars
Recent Comments