The ex-soldier's "state secret" of black pearls
A retired army officer in southern Vietnam is harboring what he called
a "state secret," a method to produce black pearls from freshwater
oysters, once thought only possible in marine oysters.
Colonel Tran Doan Thien from Ho Chi Minh City's Tan Binh district used
to be stationed along the central coasts of Ha Tinh province where he
made friends with many fishermen and pearl cultivators.
Ever since he stumbled upon one lustrous pearl while looking for
oysters for food, Thien dreamed of producing pearls himself.
He retired in 1985 and formed a team to raise oysters and try
cultivating pearls.
"Things were difficult at that time. Nothing was certain. We had to do
research, raise oysters and culture the pearls, and we could only
afford to eat instant noodles," he said.
He even had to sell his only motorbike.
"Everyone thought we [the team] were weird but we were always
optimistic".
Through trial and error, Thien's team succeeded in producing and
selling beautiful white pearls.
But he never stopped there.
Thien recalled he once visited France and saw black pearls on sale
four or five times more expensive than their white counterparts due,
as he later found out, to their rarity.
He decided to cultivate the elusive black pearls. However, his efforts
were in vain until chatting with his wife one day he came up with an
idea as she smiled, revealing healthy, but jet-black teeth. Tooth
blackening used to be popular in Vietnam, and can still be seen in
many older women.
Since teeth are composed of calcium like pearls, Thien thought, he
could change the latters color if he cared to alter some basic
elements from the beginning, just as his wifes teeth had changed color.
He then altered his culturing and implanting processes and managed to
produce a black pearl from Sinanodonta Jourdyi, a kind of oyster taken
from southern highland Lam Dong province.
His black pearls are harvested two years after nucleus implantation
and culture in freshwater. One 13-17mm pearl goes for US$1,000-$2,000.
Hearing Vietnam was able to produce black pearls from freshwater
oysters, experts and entrepreneurs from Japan, France, Taiwan and
China flocked to his house.
They all admired and were surprised at his lustrous black pearls.
However, they were surprised even more after he rejected their million
dollar business proposals.
The colonel explained his method was a "state secret" and could not be
divulged to foreigners.
However, he promised to show a select number of devoted and
trustworthy cultivators how to make black pearls from freshwater
oysters on the condition they not sell the know-how to foreign
countries.
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