I read with a mixture of disdain, grate and insufferance on the part of the rearers the Straits Times ( online ) article : “Luohan no longer a prized catch now”, how the iniquited, ostensibly luck-bringing, great fengshui inducing fish is been abandoned in the truckloads by their capricious owners. To quote, “Oversupply killed their value and appeal. ‘After a while, they became so cheap, they had no value. So there was no point,’ “. How convienient for you buggers, but unfortunately the Flowerhorn’s fate was sealed the day some anonymous idiot thought it smart to meddle the fates with yet annother innocuous fish, as yet more other idiots bought it hook line and sinker.

Don’t tell me because people appreciate the Luohan for its intrinsic beauty; I know rearing fishes have some therapeutic merit but this fish justs looks…unsightly compared to his other aquatic brethren. This deplorable fad is just like the bubble tea boom a few years ago, only this time the precipitate is a living object and can’t be poured down your sink, but rather inundating the island’s freshwater bodies with new, befuddled inhabitants. You can imagine my incredulity when I last saw a whole school of them swimming along the bays of the Singapore River, no joke.

Let’s just hope no one decides next that some poor animal is really excellent for ushering in good fengshui, or woe, woe to their species.