The cries of amorous swiftlets echo around the dark room, an unlikely gold mine for traders in southern Myanmar who are cashing in on rising demand for the edible nests from China’s growing middle class.
Dozens of buildings dedicated to the tiny birds have sprung up around Bokpyin in recent years, their grey concrete structures towering over the humbler wooden and brick homes of the town’s human inhabitants.
Every morning and evening the air is filled with high-pitched twitterings blasted from loudspeakers that draw thousands of the swallow-like birds home to roost.
Photo: Ye Aung Thu, AFP
Edible birds nests have become one of the main industries in the town, traditionally known for producing the chewable stimulant betel nut as well as rubber and palm oil.
Traders can charge more than NT$60,000 a viss (equivalent to 1.63kg) for the tiny nests — more than the average person in Myanmar earns in a year.
“We started making man-made bird nests (houses) 10 years ago,” said Paing Set Aung, who owns one of the buildings where hundreds of swiftlets make their homes in the rafters.
“Initially there was a house where the birds came to roost by themselves. After that, people started to construct man-made bird houses.”
Most of the tiny white nests, which are made from solidified bird spit, are sold to neighboring China.
Long considered the reserve of the country’s wealthy elite, who ate them during lavish banquets, they are in increasing demand from middle-class consumers.
Today the global edible birds nest industry is estimated to be worth NT$150 billion, most of it produced in Southeast Asia.
Myanmar’s exports have surged since 2011 — the year the former junta handed over power to a quasi-civilian government.
“Bird nests are one of the main businesses in Bokpyin,” said local Lin Aung, who built his first house five years ago and is now on his third. “China is the top buyer of bird nests here.”
‘CAVIAR OF THE EAST’
Once across the border, the nests are transformed into one of the most expensive foods in the world.
When boiled in water they dissolve into a gelatinous gloop which is then made into desserts or drunk as a soup or a tonic that is said to prolong life and improve strength.
There is little peer-reviewed scientific data showing that nests have proven medicinal properties. Nutritional studies have shown the saliva to be mainly made up of protein, followed by carbohydrates.
In Shanghai restaurants sell the “the caviar of the East,” as it is known, for hundreds of US dollars a bowl.
Many of them cater specifically to women, who believe the nests can help smooth the complexion and make them look younger.
The tonic is also said to help during pregnancy — one of Shanghai’s high-end spas solely for mothers-to-be even has its own restaurant and sells gift bags for as much as NT$17,300.
Shoppers can also order the products online, including candied birds nests from Myanmar to be eaten as sweets.
“In China, the bird nest has been a really famous and much-loved traditional tonic since ancient times,” Zhang Yi told AFP inside her NestCha restaurant.
“It is mild and a little sweet. It is good for women, the elderly, children and men.”
CHANGING INDUSTRY
These luxury products are a far cry from the nests’ humble beginnings on the islands of Myanmar’s southern archipelago.
To begin with they were harvested on the region’s many islands by daring climbers who risked life and limb scaling treacherous cliffs without any safety equipment.
For years the industry was dominated by the Union of Myanmar Economic Holdings Ltd, a sprawling conglomerate controlled by the military elites that ran Myanmar for half a century.
But, as in much of Southeast Asia, production has increasingly moved into urban centers.
Locals in the southern city of Myeik started building houses to attract the birds decades ago, then later production spread to Bokpyin and nearby Kawthaung.
There are now more than 130 houses devoted to the swiftlets dotted around the region, according to state media. Competition for space in Bokpyin between bird nest producers and tourism developers has seen land prices surge to as high as NT$2.3 million a plot in downtown — on a par with parts of the commercial capital Yangon.
Nests are normally harvested three or four times a year, but traders can collect them often as once a month if they are in need of cash.
Producer Aung Kyaw Moe said that, because the swiftlet populations naturally increase as the birds become accustomed to their homes, the industry will only grow in the coming years.
“They are like humans because they come and live here after they get to know the place,” he told AFP, standing next to his tall wooden bird-house in Myeik.
Last week Joseph Nye, the well-known China scholar, wrote on the Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s website about how war over Taiwan might be averted. He noted that years ago he was on a team that met with then-president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), “whose previous ‘unofficial’ visit to the US had caused a crisis in which China fired missiles into the sea and the US deployed carriers off the coast of Taiwan.” Yes, that’s right, mighty Chen caused that crisis all by himself. Neither the US nor the People’s Republic of China (PRC) exercised any agency. Nye then nostalgically invoked the comical specter
Relations between Taiwan and the Czech Republic have flourished in recent years. However, not everyone is pleased about the growing friendship between the two countries. Last month, an incident involving a Chinese diplomat tailing the car of vice president-elect Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) in Prague, drew public attention to the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) operations to undermine Taiwan overseas. The trip was not Hsiao’s first visit to the Central European country. It was meant to be low-key, a chance to meet with local academics and politicians, until her police escort noticed a car was tailing her through the Czech capital. The
April 15 to April 21 Yang Kui (楊逵) was horrified as he drove past trucks, oxcarts and trolleys loaded with coffins on his way to Tuntzechiao (屯子腳), which he heard had been completely destroyed. The friend he came to check on was safe, but most residents were suffering in the town hit the hardest by the 7.1-magnitude Hsinchu-Taichung Earthquake on April 21, 1935. It remains the deadliest in Taiwan’s recorded history, claiming around 3,300 lives and injuring nearly 12,000. The disaster completely flattened roughly 18,000 houses and damaged countless more. The social activist and
Over the course of former President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) 11-day trip to China that included a meeting with Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Xi Jinping (習近平) a surprising number of people commented that the former president was now “irrelevant.” Upon reflection, it became apparent that these comments were coming from pro-Taiwan, pan-green supporters and they were expressing what they hoped was the case, rather than the reality. Ma’s ideology is so pro-China (read: deep blue) and controversial that many in his own Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) hope he retires quickly, or at least refrains from speaking on some subjects. Regardless