Making a splash

> Hand-reared for its colour and beauty, the koi carp has become an iconic symbol of beauty in its native Japan, and the rest of Asia

48-year-old, who took over the farm from his father and is training his son, half his age, in the subtle arts of koi breeding.

“We have many secrets,” he adds mischievously. “But even if we let them slip, it wouldn’t work. You have to be able to feel it.”

These days, any selfrespecting traditional Japanese garden has plenty of colourful koi gracing its ponds, but it is a relatively recent tradition.

Around 200 years ago, villagers in the mountainous region around Niigata (in the northwest of Japan) started to practise genetic engineering without knowing what they were doing.

For the first time, they began to cross-breed rare colourful carp, not for food but for pure aesthetical value.

The craze for nishikigoi gradually took over the whole of Japan, and then spread into other parts of Asia.

They are especially popular in China, where carp swimming against the tide symbolises the idea of perseverance leading to riches – rather like people climbing the social ladder, said Yutaka Suga, professor at the Institute for Advanced Studies on Asia at Tokyo University.

Today, koi is big business and Japanese exports are booming – 90% of domestic production is exported and sold at auction.

In 2016, Japan exported a record 295 tonnes of koi carp, generating turnover of ¥3.5 billion (RM125 million), an increase of almost 50% from 2007, according to Japan’s agriculture ministry.

As for individual carp, “the prices have become insane”, said carp association boss Hattori.

“Today, a two-year-old carp can sell for ¥30 million each (RM1.07 million) whereas 10 years ago, ¥2 million (RM71,660) was already a very good price,” he said.

Like racehorse owners, many foreign owners leave their prized possessions in their home Japanese farms so they can compete in the most prestigious fishy pageants, which are only open to domestic rearers.

One such owner, Chinese koi collector Yuan Jiandong, was in Tokyo to cheer on some of his own carp.

“It’s not a way of making money. It’s a way of spending it for fun,” laughed the pharmaceutical boss from Shanghai.

But owning koi is so much more than a vulgar display of wealth, he said.

“When you see these beautiful fish gliding around in your pond, you forget the stresses of daily life and you find peace of mind.”

And you can’t put a price on that. – AFP-Relaxnews the theory that the Earth is the centre of the Universe, and three-quarters of its components are from the 15th-century original.

According to an old legend, Prague councillors blinded the clock’s maker to prevent him from building another device.

Prague, which welcomes about seven million tourists annually, might install a large screen featuring the clock and apostles while the clock is under repair, Wolf said. – AFPRelaxnews