From rags to riches
In Xiaogu village, Chengmai county, on the northern side of Hainan Island, every household now grows agarwood in their front and backyards. The trees have replaced the rubber plantations that once dominated the landscape.
It was not always this way.
The man who changed that is Cai Qinxin. The villagers once called him "Dog Smell". As the youngest of five children in a poor rural family, he often wore torn and dirty clothes.
At age 12, Cai followed his parents to fish the Nandu River that flows through both his home county and the agarwood-growing regions of Danzhou. A day's income was usually less than 50 yuan.
In 1993, while selling fish, Cai met a businessman from Shantou, Guangdong, who operated an agarwood processing factory. The monthly salary was 600 yuan, and Cai took a job immediately.
At the factory, he learned how agarwood was processed, from cutting raw wood to extracting oil. The work was physically demanding. Other workers processed five or six bags of wood a day. Cai processed more than 10. Each bag weighed around 40 kilograms. "I worked harder because I knew this was an opportunity," he said.
After one year, his salary was increased to 1,200 yuan. Three years later, the factory owner told Cai he had learned everything about agarwood processing and should go back home and start his own business. The owner gave him 50,000 yuan as a reward and start-up money.
In 1996, Cai returned to Xiaogu village and began processing agarwood in a small tiled house, but he struggled to find outlets to sell his products. He found a partner from the local agarwood association, who handled sales while Cai focused on processing. Their products eventually reached overseas markets, including the Middle East.
