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farm worker cooking
home-made food for goldfish
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After visiting the
Aquafair in Kuala Lumpur, we head north to Ipoh to visit its
goldfish farms. Taking a 4-hour bus ride in the late
Saturday morning, it was a pleasant sunny ride up the north
south highway graced by scenic hills lining the distant
skyline. As more hills and Chinese temples lined the highway,
then we exited the highway abruptly and yes! we had reached
Ipoh - The Goldfish City of Malaysia. Our hosts, Vincent Liew
and Mun Loong arrived timely at the bus terminal to pick us
up. |
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On
the way to the fish farm a light shower had started and we
stopped by a roadside restaurant for lunch. Wow wee! The food in
Ipoh is really yummy and we had almost forgotten about the rain.
For most of us it was the first time we had tasted such tender
and slight oily steamed catfish. After a satisfying meal, the
rain had stopped timely and we drove on. |
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ryukin
ponds |
farm with oranda seed
fishes |
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With our tummy satisfied, what is better than to
see some good goldfish and we were equally not disappointed. Our
first stop was at Ah Meng’s farm. Ah Meng
breeds Oranda and Ryukin but he is more specialized with
Ryukin. When we alighted at the gate of his farm, the familiar
sight of mud ponds showed un-mistakenly of a Ryukin breeding
farm. Our visit was not timely as Ah Meng had just cleared
stock of his bigger Ryukins. We pick up the last 2 long tail
Ryukins and they are gorgeous – yes, you did not hear it
wrong, gorgeous even for the last 2 fishes left. |
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pair of rare red cap egg phoenix |
dragon eye pingpongs
pearlscales | |
| In our next
stop, we visited Ah Loy who specialised in the breeding of
Oranda. However, we did not get to see his Oranda as we were
told a flood had flushed out all his stock and he is now
trying to restart his breeding program.
Next we went to see the Short tail
Ping Pong Pearlscale farm owned by Ah Fatt. Ah Fatt breeds
only the Ping Pong Pearlscale in his farm and he is reputed
for his bloodline. It didn’t take us much effort to round off
10 fishes to bring home. |
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celestial ping pong pearlscale |
pearlscale
ranchu | |
| From Ah
Fatt’s farm we went next door to his brother’s farm. This is a
more interesting farm for collectors as the breeder, Ah Chuen,
is more adventurous to breed other varieties that few would
attempt.
The first thing Ah Chuen proudly
showed us was a pond of Dragon Eye Ping Pong Pearlscales. To
our amazement, amongst the rare gems there was one Celestial
Eye Pearlscale staring at us. It was a cute fellow with well
balance eyes and neat caudal fins. Ah Chuen is a very creative
breeder - with the Dragon Eye Ping Pong Pearlscale his next
project is to breed the all-white Dragon Eye Ping Pong Pealscale. Ah Chuen explained to me with the all-white
nacreous Pearlscale, those with the black eyes will be more
attractive to highlight the feature of this
variety. Besides the rare Dragon Eye Ping Pong
Pealscale, this farm has also started to breed anther rare
variety - a black ranchu with pearly scales. As the breeder is
still trying to stabilize the line, the fishes are not for
sale. |
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feasting in ipoh |
In the far
side of the farm, Ah Fatt brought us to see a pond his brother
kept for his personal collections. There were a few rare
coloured calico egg fish with a couple of egg shape Redcap.
The pair of Redcaps caught my immediate attention. That was a
pair of Redcap Egg Pheonix so rare that according to many
Chinese breeders, they are almost extinct in China.
Amazingly, here in the quiet and remote goldfish farm, someone
is keeping them! This rare pair has stocky body, smooth back
and a pair of broad and pointed caudal. Ah Chuen said he has
no plan to breed the Redcap Egg Pheonix due to the lack of
market demand. I encouraged him to maintain this line as it is a
matter of time more hobbyists will appreciate this
variety.
As darkness fell and it started to
drizzle again, hinting the time to call off for the
day. |
| Ipoh is also
a food paradise so this trip is well complemented with good
food and seeing beautiful goldfish. For dinner, Vincent
brought us to a shop serving bean spout and steam chicken.
There is only one word to describe the food serve at this
shop, yummy!
Some of us stayed at Vincent’s
house for the night while the rest took a long ride back to
Kuala Lumpur. Vincent and his members are avid Japanese Ranchu
fanciers. As it was dark, we just took a quick look at
Vincent’s collection as we do not want to disturb the ranchu
resting. We slept late that night as we had lots to catch up
with the ranchu discussion. |
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checking out the top view ranchus | |
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Mun Loong's setup is evidence of his passion |
The next day, we visited Michael Lok - another
avid ranchu hobbyist. His passion for the ranchu hobby can be
demonstrated from how well his ranchus are adapted to his hand
feeding.
Time really flies and we visited
Mun Loong briefly to see his Ranchu collections before leaving
for Kuala Lumpur. We would like to thank our hosts: Mr Vincent
Liew, Mr Michael Lok and Mun Loong for their kind
hospitality.
/contributed by Alvin Lim To see other articles in our
goldfish diary, let's go back to our
diary
home page.
14 Feb 2007 |
