Tradition in the balance

Trained ducks are used for fishing on Hongze Lake Wetland, a traditional way that is slowly losing its allure among local people. Nonetheless, a Chinese who is known only as Mr Zhou (above) is still doing it the way his ancestors did, hoping to attract more visitors to the wetland – a safe habitat for hundreds of thousands of migratory birds to live through the winter – by keeping the tradition alive. PHOTOS: EPA-EFE
Trained ducks are used for fishing (above) on Hongze Lake Wetland, a traditional way that is slowly losing its allure among local people. Nonetheless, a Chinese who is known only as Mr Zhou is still doing it the way his ancestors did, hoping to attract more visitors to the wetland – a safe habitat for hundreds of thousands of migratory birds to live through the winter – by keeping the tradition alive. PHOTOS: EPA-EFE
Trained ducks are used for fishing on Hongze Lake Wetland, a traditional way that is slowly losing its allure among local people. Nonetheless, a Chinese who is known only as Mr Zhou is still doing it the way his ancestors did, hoping to attract more visitors to the wetland (above) – a safe habitat for hundreds of thousands of migratory birds to live through the winter – by keeping the tradition alive. PHOTOS: EPA-EFE

Trained ducks are used for fishing on Hongze Lake Wetland, a traditional way that is slowly losing its allure among local people. Nonetheless, a Chinese who is known only as Mr Zhou is still doing it the way his ancestors did, hoping to attract more visitors to the wetland - a safe habitat for hundreds of thousands of migratory birds to live through the winter - by keeping the tradition alive.

Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.

A version of this article appeared in the print edition of The Straits Times on November 28, 2020, with the headline Tradition in the balance. Subscribe