Shadowing Practice: The End of Malaysian Durians - Learn English Speaking with Video
Creating lesson...
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Durian prices have crashed to RM2-ish and some are even giving them away for free.
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I mean, right now in PJSS2, you can practically walk away with a Musang King for only 10 or some even RM5.
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And to put that into perspective, this is the exact same premium fruit that used to cost wealthy households 60 to what, 90 ringgit per kilo in the past peak season.
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And for durian lovers, this sounds fantastic.
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But for thousands of Malaysian farmers, this is one of the worst during seasons they've experienced in years Some are selling below production costs,
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while others are struggling to find buyers So are we in the Red Ocean?
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I don't know yet So can we survive in the Red Ocean?
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It's also another question So what actually happened here?
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How did the king of fruits suddenly lose its value overnight?
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Is there something much bigger happening behind the scenes?
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Let's unpack that Before we talk about the price crash, we need to understand why durian was worth so much in the first place.
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For many Malaysians, durian is more than just a fruit.
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Every durian season, we start seeing roadside stores popping up everywhere.
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Some families even plan weekend trips to the Bentong durian farm and friends gather around plastic tables at night, chatting and just enjoying the moment together.
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And part of the durian's expensive price tax is actually quite simple.
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It's a highly seasonal fruit.
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Malaysia only has one durian season between June and August, with a smaller one around December to January.
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So from start to finish, you are looking at almost half a year.
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So that's why farmers can't just produce more durians whenever prices go up.
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At the end of the day, they are still working according to the weather.
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But the story doesn't stop there.
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Durian farming is a very long game.
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Imagine you plant a Musang King tree today.
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You won't be harvesting durians next year or even the year after.
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Depending on the variety and growing conditions, it usually takes between 4 to 10 years before meaningful harvests begin.
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And during all those years, the farmers are not making money yet.
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They are spending on fertilizers, pest control, irrigation, workers, and just maintaining the whole orchard.
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And depending on the farm, those costs can easily reach 55 to even over 100k per hectare before a single durian is even sold.
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And then in year 5, finally they welcome the first harvest.
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A young Musang king tree only produces around 10 to 20 kilograms of fruit.
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And if you assume a hectare has about 123 trees and the farm sells the durian at around RM40 per kilo, that's roughly 50k to even 100k in annual revenue.
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But here's the catch though, the expenses don't stop just because the trees are producing.
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Farmers still need to spend around 30 to 60k every year to maintain the orchard itself.
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And even after harvesting starts, they are not suddenly making huge profits overnight.
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In fact, if everything goes according According to their plan, most farmers only recover their initial investment around the year 7 mark, provided that everything goes well.
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If there is one bad flowering season, any prolonged drought, floods or even strong winds, then any one of these can just wipe out a large part of their harvest.
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So when we say Musang King is expensive, actually part of that price we pay are for years of waiting,
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years of investment and even years of risk that the farmers take long before the durian ever reaches our table.
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Let's get back to the video.
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So back to the earlier question, something we had willingly paid premium prices for over decades suddenly collapsed in value,
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and we are talking about more than 50% drop in the span of 2 years time.
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Now farmers call it the durian tsunami, which actually began more than a decade ago, closely tied to one country, which is China.
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China is the world's largest importer and consumer of durian.
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Until today, China imports nearly 28.5 billion ringgit worth of durian annually, far surpassing the run-up Hong Kong at just 725 million ringgit.
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And back in 2011, Malaysia was first granted access to export only durian paste and pulp to China.
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Fresh-hold durians weren't allowed yet because Malaysia's traditional harvesting method wasn't that well suited for long-distance exports.
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Unlike other countries, Malaysian durians are famous for being left to ripen naturally on the tree before falling to the ground.
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And that's what gives Musang King its rich aroma, creamy texture and also complex flavor that many durian lovers like myself are willing to pay a premium for.
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And at that time, Thailand, the biggest player that almost monopolizes the Chinese durian market did not do it this way.
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They harvest their durians while they are still on the tree to give them a much longer window for transportation.
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And couple that with much larger plantations and a logistics network that had already been serving China for years,
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and it became very clear that competing head-on in the fresh durian market wasn't realistic for Malaysia.
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So that's why instead of trying to sell more durians, Malaysia decided to sell better durians.
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Malaysia entered the China market cautiously with just frozen pulp and paste, and instead of promoting every variety, we focused on one name only, the Musang King.
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In fact, among all countries exporting durians into China, Malaysia's durian price per ton was the most expensive of any country selling into China,
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and it was almost double Thailand's average price and over four times the Philippines.
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And then in 2018, Malaysian researchers successfully developed a new flash freezing technique using liquid
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nitrogen at around minus 90 to 110 degrees celsius allowing whole
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durians to be frozen almost instantly without damaging the fruit's texture
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and then soon after china approved the import of frozen whole malaysian durians
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and for the very first time chinese consumers taste something much closer to what malaysians enjoy here at home
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and they absolutely loved it the musang king quickly evolved beyond just another imported fruit
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and some china media even call it the Hermes of durians.
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And over time, as China's middle class continued growing, consumers became increasingly willing to spend on premium imported food.
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And durian, especially the Mo-Sang King became a gift, just like premium tea or even wine.
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And platforms like Douyin, which is TikTok, and also Xiao Hongshu also introduced this tropical fruit to millions of younger buyers and made it fashionable almost overnight.
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And with a population of more than 1.4 billion people, Even the small increase in demand creates an enormous market,
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and the success of the direct export market quickly caught people's attention.
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Imagine you're a rubber farmer, and the rubber prices have been disappointing, to say the least.
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Well, you see, the rubber prices fell to around RM10 per kilo by January 2017, from a peak around RM17 per kilo in February 2011.
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That is around a 38% drop within a short 6 years time.
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And then the government tells you, 1 hectare of oil palm can make roughly 17,500 ringgit a year.
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But 1 hectare of Mo Sang King, you can make around 155,000 ringgit.
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That is 9 times more.
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I mean, what would you plan next?
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That's exactly what happened across Malaysia.
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Many rubber and oil palm owners started converting their lands into durian orchards.
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And suddenly durian became an investment.
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People viewed it as a pathway to extraordinary wealth.
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Man, think about it, plant a durian tree and by year 7, it starts fruiting.
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Keep it healthy and it can keep producing for more than 100 years.
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And it is an asset that you plant once and your grandchildren could still be selling it.
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And some people also saw this opportunity as a good real estate investment.
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And in June 2017, Chinese investors partnered with locals and acquired 121 hectares of durian farm.
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And a group of Singaporeans also brought a durian plantation in Sagamai, Johor for about RM7.5 million ringgit and suddenly everyone wanted a piece of durian land
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and as a result the durian land price went
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so much higher than other types of agricultural land and between 2016 and 2024
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malaysia's total durian plantation area grew from just under 66 000
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hectares to more than 91 000 hectares almost a 40 percent increase
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and all of them were convinced
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that musang king had become the country's next green goal but
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while malaysia was celebrating another country was quietly preparing to change the game completely.
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In late 2022, Vietnam officially entered China fresh durian market, and almost overnight, they became China's second largest durian supplier, and within just a year,
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they already captured almost 35% of China's imported durian market.
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That's an incredible rise in just a short period of time.
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So, how did Vietnam grow so quickly?
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Well, durian plantations are not new to Vietnam.
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They did not suddenly start planting durians in, say, 2022.
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The real expansion in Vietnam actually happened in 2017, when durian prices surged and farmers realised it was much more profitable than many other crops.
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And then farmers began actively converting their rice paddies into specialised durian growths, which is similar to what happened right here in Malaysia.
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But Vietnam had one major advantage that Malaysia simply could not replicate, which is their geography.
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They share a land border with China.
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So, instead of relying heavily on sea freight which could take almost two weeks or expensive air cargoes,
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Vietnamese durians can be transported by truck directly into southern China in a matter of days.
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And that means shorter travel time, lower logistics costs, fresher fruit and ultimately lower prices for the end consumers.
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And what made Vietnam's entry so impactful was that it came at exactly the right time, where consumer preferences in China started to change to change.
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Although Musang King had already became famous in China, more and more people no longer wanted frozen durian pulp, they wanted fresh whole durians instead.
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I mean, makes sense lah right?
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Fresh is always better.
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And by the time Malaysia finally entered the fresh durian market in 2024, Vietnam and Thailand had already spent years training Chinese consumers to expect cheap durian.
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And unfortunately, the timing couldn't have been worse, because while competition outside Malaysia was becoming stronger, another problem was also quietly growing inside Malaysia.
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all those musang king trees everyone planted years earlier well they
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were finally ready suddenly malaysia was producing far more durian than before
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and it felt like everything was finally coming together for us we harvest more we export more
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and our supply finally catches up with the demand
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but this is not the reality
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because apart from strict export quality requirements there's also a few other requirements
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that come first for in terms of exporting there's already a list or criteria that we need to meet.
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This criteria is being set by the importer.
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Say for example, we use China.
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China has a list of requirements that we need to fulfill before we export every piece of durian.
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Besides grading, we also make sure that the durian is free of any pesticide.
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And of course, there are certain criteria, for example, on the packaging.
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So on the past year, before 2025, Malaysian durian are only allowed to export in a frozen conditions.
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And in order to frozen the condition we have to go through this process called cryogenic
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so this nitrogen we need to at least put in this nitrogen
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or cryogen chamber for more than 90 minutes at the celsius
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of negative 110 until the core of the durian is being frozen this is the the one requirement
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and all the fruits
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that we get in order to export we need to acquire food from farm
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which are certified with my gap my gap means malaysia good agriculture practice
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and inside the my gap there's a list of requirement for the farmer to follow as well.
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What kind of pesticide they're going to use, what kind of the dosage of pesticide they use, how they upkeep their farm, every single thing is being measured.
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So in order to make sure that the fruits are safe
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and good to be consumed and one of the requirements
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that everyone of us don't know that Musang King never touches the floor.
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If you go to farm they don't put nets or string.
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This is also one of the requirements because why the land
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or the soil or dirt itself might contain a lot of bacteria or things that you don't want.
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So this is one of the criteria that we need to meet so
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if you can fulfill everything the last thing is certifications of
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the factory itself not all the factory are allowed to export
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only factory was certified like what we have only able to export
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so you must have fruits from farm
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which is certified you must process by the factory will be
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certified then only you can able to ship up the durian
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and then after fulfilling all the qualifications then the fruit must
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have a consistent size good appearance proper maturity no cracks
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and it must survive the journey overseas and
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that is why not every musang king is good enough for export
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so to get enough durians
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that qualify to be exported for china malaysian farms end up harvesting more of the total fruit
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and for the ones
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that didn't quite make the cut especially those musang king under
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10 years old guess where they go well they get dumped right back into our local stores
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and that is why you can see cheap musang kings everywhere right now.
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So by chasing the China gold rush, we accidentally created a flood of cheap durian at home.
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And what makes the situation worse is, in the past, Malaysia's durian season is spread across different states.
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Usually northern states like Penang and Kedah would see their first drop as early as May
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and then followed by Pahang and then Johor harvest in June through August.
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And this staggered harvest gave the market some breathing room in between.
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This year, variable weather pushed nearly every producing state into the same June to August window all at once
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and the market simply couldn't spread the load anymore.
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And now imagine this happening across hundreds of durian farms all at the same time.
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Thousands of tons of durian suddenly had nowhere to go.
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And you might think, why can't we just freeze all of them?
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Well, not really.
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Cold storage and processing facilities have their limits and fresh durians don't wait.
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And once they ripen, farmers only have a very short window to sell them
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because just like any other food product people want them fresh
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but that's not the only limiting factor though since durian had
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already been commoditized the demand for it from the market is
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also equally as important malaysia durian very unique we cannot predict we can only agar-agar predict how much
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or how many it for that day
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so the lesser it fell the price is is going to be high
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and depending on is there any big buyer come out on that day
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if there's a big buyer coming buying tons of tons of
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durian with a higher price therefore the price will increase
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so the increase might be five ringgit or probably to eight ringgit
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so this effect the selling price so durian is just like a share market
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because why there is uncertainty so even
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if malaysians kept eating the same amount of durians as before
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the market simply couldn't absorb such a huge surge in supply all at once
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and when there are too many durians but not enough buyers, the choice left for durian sellers becomes painfully simple.
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Sell at whatever price they could get, or watch the durian spoil.
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And the reason durian tsunami also exposed a weakness in Malaysia's traditional harvesting method.
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In the past, if naturally fallen durians couldn't be sold fresh, they could still be processed into frozen whole durians, pulp, or even paste and then exported to China.
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I mean that helped absorb part of the surplus.
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But as we mentioned earlier, fresh whole durians have become the fastest growing part of China's market.
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Frozen durians are still being exported, but fresh durians are now where the strongest demand and better prices are.
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And naturally, exporters also want a bigger share of that market.
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But the challenge is that fresh durians don't give exporters much time.
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Once a naturally fallen durian hits the ground, the clock starts ticking.
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It has to be collected, sorted, packed and then shipped overseas before the quality starts dropping within a few days time.
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And when thousands of tons of durians become ready almost at the same time like this year, that short window becomes an even bigger challenge.
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So instead of risking the durian becoming too ripe before they can even be exported,
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some exporters and farmers are now exploring the harvesting methods used in Thailand and Vietnam which they have been doing for years, and that is harvesting the durians before they fall.
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And from a business point of view, it may make a lot of sense.
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The fruits last longer during transport are less likely to crack
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and have a better chance of reaching china in good condition
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but here's the dilemma for decades malaysia's biggest advantage was naturally three fallen durians that's what made our durian special
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so if we start harvesting the same way as thailand
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and vietnam out of pressure one question naturally pops up why
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would people continue paying more for malaysian durians my answer is yes
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and no there's no right or wrong depends on what customer one first.
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So if the market has to adapt to that now, as a business, as an entrepreneur, flexibility and adaptability is very important.
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But we also never forget where we come from.
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Durand repen from a tree definitely is the best durand.
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And Malaysia loves that durand.
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But in order for us to compete in the international market, taking that step isn't necessary.
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This is what we need to think.
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First, we need to preserve our culture.
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Durand repen on a tree.
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But also we have to look into survival.
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Can the planters survive?
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Rippin durian from the tree, the live shell, like our policy in Deking, 24 hours maximum.
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After one day, we reject the durian because the shell life of durian itself is very short.
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In order for us to compete in the international market, even you use an aeroplane, a private jet to fly, you also need about one day.
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You have a ripin durian by today, you packet it, you put it on a flight and you fly over to your destination,
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say for example China say for example china the quickest time six to eight hours
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that is like almost nearly impossible unless you're a superman to deliver for you as a lala move up superman
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and it doesn't help
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when the chinese buying behavior has also changed over the years during the boom phase buyers mainly wanted the biggest
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and most beautiful grade a musang king
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but today many are willing to buy lower grades instead
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because consumers have become more price conscious in this weaker economy
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yes from the very beginning our first buyer herma alibaba group they only want a grade early stage
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where the industry starts to boom they only want a double a
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or the lowest a b but for now trend change people start know how to value
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that the goodness of duran is not just depending on grading now they want b
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or c this is also another contribution factor because of the economic that's going on in China.
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Buying A is two times the price of buying a BC.
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So when the economical go downturns, money gets lesser but I still want to eat durian.
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BC is the way out.
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At first we are on a blue ocean because Musang King, very unique right?
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But now they also have Musang King.
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And perhaps that's the irony, the very harvesting method that built Malaysia's premium reputation is also becoming one of its biggest commercial challenges.
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For consumers, this durian tsunami feels like a total blessing.
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And for retailers, it can even mean better business because affordable durians attract more customers.
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But for the farmers who planted those trees 7 or 8 years ago, it's a completely different story.
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And the officials think
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that 35 to 14 ringgit per kilo may actually be a
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more sustainable long term price for the Mo-Sang King instead of the 19 ringgit peak prices during the boom years.
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And perhaps what we are seeing today could simply be the market settling into a new reality.
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the biggest lesson from this story is this.
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Every boom eventually attracts competition.
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And by the time everyone rushes into the same opportunity, supply catches up.
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And when supply catches up, prices rarely stay where they were.
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And we have seen this happen time and time again.
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Rubber, palm oil, glove stocks during COVID, and today is during.
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When everyone wants to make money from the same thing, eventually, there will be too much of it.
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Thanks for watching.
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Why Practice Speaking with "The End of Malaysian Durians" Video?
This video is a goldmine for shadowspeak practice! It blends casual conversation with detailed explanations, mirroring real-life speaking scenarios—perfect for IELTS speaking practice or everyday fluency. You’ll learn to discuss complex topics like economics and agriculture while keeping your tone natural. Plus, the mix of storytelling and factual details helps you master pacing and emphasis, key for engaging listeners. Whether you’re a beginner or polishing advanced skills, shadowing this dialogue builds confidence in explaining cause-and-effect, a critical speaking skill.
Grammar & Expressions in Context
The speaker uses practical structures you can copy today:
- "So are we in the Red Ocean? I don't know yet." This question-answer pair teaches conversational hesitation, making your speech sound more authentic.
- "Depending on the variety... it usually takes 4 to 10 years." "Depending on" is a flexible phrase for explaining variables—ideal for IELTS tasks where you need to qualify ideas.
- "If there is one bad season... then any one of these can wipe out harvests." Conditional sentences with "if" and "then" help you describe risks, a common topic in discussions about business or the environment.
Common Pronunciation Traps
Watch out for these tricky words when doing shadow speech:
- "Durian" – Don’t rush the "u" sound; it’s "DOO-ree-uhn," not "dur-ee-an."
- "Hectare" – The stress is on the first syllable: "HEK-tair," not "hek-TARE."
- "Fertilizers" – Pronounce all three syllables: "FUR-tuh-lie-zers," avoiding the common mistake of dropping the "tuh" sound.
Practicing these with shadowing will sharpen your English pronunciation and make you sound more natural. Ready to start? Hit play, pause, and repeat—you’ll see progress in no time!
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Present perfect continuous have/has been + -ing — an action that started earlier and is still going on | have been disappointing · have been doing |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | is even sold · weren't allowed · being left |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | have crashed · they've experienced · have become |
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | country, which is · Douyin, which is · growths, which is |
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.