俗话说，“靠山吃山，靠海吃海”。胶州人马希庆今年55岁。从16岁起，他就跟着干爹的生产队出海捕鱼。八十年代初，他从早上1点出海到下午3点，一天能挣8块钱。“这在当时很可观，一个工人一天才能挣4到5块钱。” Farmers live on the mountains, and fishermen live on the seas. Ma Xiqing, 55, lives in Jiaozhou, a coastal city in east China's Shandong Province. He started fishing at sea since he was 16. In the early 80s, he set out at one o'clock in the morning and returned at three in the afternoon. The wage was eight yuan per day. "It was good pay. A normal worker could only earn four to five yuan at that time."马希庆在海上捕鱼 Ma Xiqing, a fisherman, is fishing at the sea off east China's Shandong Province. /CGTN Photo
天天吃鱼吃虾，在现在人看来十分惬意，然而马希庆回忆说：“捕鱼是力气活，得背着七八十斤鱼往船上跳，再背到码头卖。人出力的时候，就想着吃油。光吃海鲜不长膘啊。但是那会儿一斤大虾换不了一斤猪油。” Eating seafood every day seemed to be a good life. But Ma recalls, "Fishing needs heavy labour. We had to jump on the boats carrying over 35 kg of fish and sold them on the pier. When you worked so hard, you wanted to eat something oily. But seafood couldn't let you grow fat."渔船码头景象The fishing pier. / CGTN Photo
后来，马希庆从出海转成跑海。“什么叫跑海呢，就是从码头带上货，到市场上销售。”出海的地点离马希庆家有25里路，他便骑着自行车，从码头捎货到家附近卖，销路不错。“但那时候还没有储藏条件，当天卖不掉的，该晒的晒，该腌的腌。再处理不了只能扔了。” Then Ma switched from fishing to selling fish. "We took seafood from the pier and sold them on the markets," he recalled. The pier was about 12.5 kilometers from Ma's home. He carried sea products with his bicycle and the business went well. "But there was nowhere to preserve the food. If the products were not sold on the same day, I either dried them or salted them. If those wouldn't work, I had to toss them away."
随着物流发展起来，海鲜的销路越来越广。“现在有空运物流，还能放干冰，三到四个小时走遍全国，放48个小时海鲜还是活的。”于是，2016年，女儿帮马希庆开了网店。这时候，跑了一辈子海的马希庆想不到，在女儿的帮助下，自己有朝一日能成为直播网红。 As logistic chains developed, seafood can be sold to places faraway. "They can be transported by air with dry ice. They can reach everywhere in the country within three hours. And the fish is still jumping even after 48 hours." In 2016, with the help of his daughter, Ma established an online shop. He never anticipated that he would become a popular live streaming host.网店员工打包海鲜 Workers of the online shop packing seafood. /CGTN Photo
刚开始，网店没有名声，销量惨淡。于是，女儿鼓励马希庆出海的时候开直播，表示店里的东西都是自己捞上来的，新鲜得很。海上没信号，他就学习拍视频，回到码头让两个女儿传到网上。渐渐地，他们的粉丝多了起来。 Nobody knew about Ma's online shop at the start, and he could hardly sell anything. His daughter encouraged him to stream his produce online and attract customers, showing them that everything in the shop is freshly from the sea. As there were no signals in the sea, Ma learnt to film videos, while his daughters uploaded them at the pier. The number of fans steadily grew.
马希庆向粉丝介绍捕捞上来的鱼。Fisherman Ma Xiqing live-streaming freshly-caught fish to his fans. /CGTN Photo
“现在大家知道你这个东西是好东西了。但是该怎么吃，不知道。” 马希庆说。于是，晚上，他又开直播教大家做海鲜。“皮皮虾做出来以后怎么个吃法，螃蟹从哪里开始下手抓，蛇头鱼怎么炸……今天预告明天的后天的，人们就乎乎乎上来了。” "Now they know I sell good stuff. But they don't know how to cook them," says Ma. Then he began to stream at night to teach people how to cook seafood. "I teach them how to eat mantis shrimps, how to hold crabs and how to fry snakehead fish…Then I forecast what I'll cook in the next streaming, and people would come all at once."马希庆直播海鲜烹饪过程。Ma Xinins is live-streaming online the cooking process of seafood. /CGTN Photo
直播的时候，看见网友纷纷用流口水的表情刷屏，马希庆觉得很满足，海鲜的销路也前所未有地好。“刷刷刷，一百多斤，两三个小时卖出去了，坐在家里把货卖了。” When he is streaming, he is satisfied to see the audience posting mouth-watering emojis. The business went great too. "I can sell over 50 kg of seafood within two or three hours. I just sit at home and everything is sold out."
年纪大了以后，马希庆出海的次数渐渐少了，但他对海依然有着深厚的感情。“我现在就容易触景生情。当时我怎么跑到这个船上来，这个海域我怎么跑的……收网捡这个鱼的时候，那种丰收的感情，我很怀念。” 好在，辛劳半生之后，儿子上了大学，女儿们和他一起开水产公司，一家人还在海南买了房，他对现在的生活感到非常满足。 As he grows older, Ma now seldom goes out to sea. But he still feels a strong emotion towards the life as a fisherman. "The scenery brings back my memories about how I ended up working on the boats and how I traveled around this area…I still miss the sense of fulfillment when I harvest the full fishing net."
The good thing is, after a lifetime's hard work, his son entered university, and his daughters helped him started a company. The family even bought an apartment in Hainan for vacations. He is very satisfied with his current life.