Chen Haisheng, a retired naval communications officer, returned to his hometown - a poor fishing village in the east of Hainan Island backed by mangroves and facing coral reefs due to injury. It was 1985, and the fishing village had just switched from a "large collective" to a "chartered boat to each household". Every family owned a small sampan, but the competition in offshore fishing was fierce, and the harvest was only enough to make a living. Unwilling to suffer poverty, and unable to fish in the deep sea due to a leg injury, the sea creature turned his attention to the intertidal zone and coral reef area that the villagers ignored, and determined to make a comeback by "seeking small seas".
