燕窩與牠們的產地：馬來西亞養燕業、華人組織與國家條令

Bird’s Nest and Where to Find Them: Malaysia Bird’s Nest Business, Chinese Organizations and National Regulations

燕窩為華人的傳統藥膳食品，其生產地遍及於東南亞各國，以印尼與馬來西亞為首，主要市場為中國大陸。燕窩是金絲燕的鳥窩，為棲息於熱帶亞洲的物種。養燕技術起源印尼，已有百年歷史，而鄰近國馬來西亞卻是2000年後突然在華人社群中快速發展的產業。養燕業的特殊性在於金絲燕無法以一般家畜的方式圈養，牠們「既野生又馴養」、「鄉村都市皆棲地」的特性，使得整個燕窩產業都在二元之間模糊的「邊界地帶」上，挑戰既有條令的管制標準。 本文試圖聚焦於國家尺度的討論，以田野工作與口述歷史為研究方法，梳理大馬燕窩產業的發展，探討東南亞各國在相似的氣候條件下，燕窩產業近20年內為何獨有在馬來西亞蓬勃發展，歷程包括養燕華人的組織動員，從國際動保法中轉以掌控燕窩貿易權、血燕事件後重建中馬燕窩貿易關係，以及面對產業結構轉型成食品質量的裝備競賽等。而馬來西亞時下房產業的低靡，成了氣候之外的空間互補條件，來應許以萬計棟的燕屋作為燕窩市場的供給者。

Edible bird’s nest is considered a medicinal delicacy in Chinese culture. With edible-nest’s production in Southeast Asian countries, this business is headed by Indonesia and Malaysia, and its main market is mainland China. Bird's nest is produced from swiftlet’s saliva, which inhabit tropical Asia. The technology of swiftlet farming originated in Indonesia over 100 years. However, swiftlet farming in the neighboring country, Malaysia, is a burgeoning business led by Malaysian Chinese communities after 2000s. The particularity of swiftlet farming is that these productive animals cannot be bred as ordinary livestock in captivity. Their characteristic of wildness-domestication embody ambiguous “borderlands” that challenge the prior regulatory standards in Malaysia. This paper attempts to focus on national-scale discussions, and analyzes why only Malaysian Chinese could have animated this business in the past two decades instead of other Southeast Asian countries? How did the use of breeding spaces complement the vacancy of Malaysian real estate? And how did the blood-red bird’s nest incident in China shock the prior industrial structure? Using fieldwork, interviews, and oral history as the data base, this article narrates the development of Malaysia’s edible-nest business, including how Chinese swiftlet breeders organizations gained economic and trade dominance out of the limitations of Wildlife Conservation Act, and how they reconstructed China-Malaysia trade relations after the blood-red bird’s nest incident, and that it transformed to the races of food quality and technical equipment. Under high demand in the Chinese bird’s nest market, thousands of swiftlet-breeding spaces provided from the vacancy of Malaysian real estate were the spatial condition to be the role of suppliers.