HA LONG, Vietnam – Legend says dragons seeded Ha Long Bay with pearls. Today, microsurgery at pearl farms injects modernity into myth.

On a floating wooden platform sheltered by millennia-old limestone formations, oysters are wrested from the briny waters of the bay. I watch as a mollusc is teased open with forceps and implanted with a seed – a small irritant. The oyster should now secrete chemicals around the seed in layers, eventually forming a pearl.