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CHINA TOUR FASCINATING AS STUDY IN CULTURAL CONTRASTS
Gardeners who enjoy crawling around on their knees to dig, seed, cut, thin and tweak would enjoy touring China.
I just returned from a two-and-a-half week trip to China and was amazed by how many agricultural and horticultural tasks in this country of 1.3 billion people are still accomplished by men, women and children on their knees or bearing heavy loads on their backs.
We toured six of China's largest cities and much of the countryside in between and, for all that geography, I think I observed two tractors. This is still a country that depends on human muscle, bicycles and water buffaloes to plant and bring in the crop.
On a hillside farm field high above a river, I watched a man through my binoculars swinging an ax into the hard earth as a woman, presumably his wife, tossed in seed before the ax blade could be lifted out of the soil. This was how this field got planted.
Hillsides are farmed intensively, with water carried from the river on people's shoulders. Row after row of leafy vegetable crops are planted up and down the hillside, rather than horizontally - just the opposite of how an American farmer would logically plant to prevent erosion. No one I asked had an explanation and I concluded that the brutal work of hand-tilling the soil is easier if the laborer can work backwards down the hill.
City and small village street markets are full of lush, green, leafy vegetables, colorful fruit, and sweet potatoes, ginseng, mushrooms, carrots and lotus root, but this produce didn't arrive by rail, refrigerated truck or DC-10 from California. Most often the fresh produce was hand-picked in pre-dawn hours and bicycled to town in time for display and purchase by people heading to work on their bicycles.
It appeared that food and freight of all types in China are still moved either on bicycles or at the two ends of simple 4-foot bamboo carry poles. Bicycles are everywhere. The city of Beijing is bursting at the seams with 18 million people and more than 20 million bicycles.
It has become my habit when I travel to study trees. On this trip, it didn't require much studying to conclude that China doesn't have much of a forest. On several long bus rides, the only trees visible for miles are fast-growing poplars, a tree we regard with mild scorn here in Minnesota.
Upon questioning, our tour guides explained that Mao Zedong, Chinese leader from 1949-1976, ordered all the trees in China cut down. Besides providing fuel for China's steel mills in the 1960s and 1970s, Mao regarded trees as a threat to his personal safety. Turns out that Mao, as he rose to power, often used thick stands of trees to hide his revolutionary armies. Later, as leader, he reasoned that his enemies could also use the trees to set ambushes for him so he ordered all trees cut down. China's forestry officials are now attempting to re-forest the country's hillsides by dropping tree seeds from helicopters.
Beijing has tree-lined streets once again, thanks in part of a government initiative that encourages every citizen to plant five trees each spring on Arbor Day (March 12). Trees are being encouraged as a future source of lumber, for their ornamental value, and to fight the city's horrific air pollution. Sadly, however, the poplars, cottonwoods and willows people are given to plant are already showing signs of age and promise to cause major difficulties as decay and storms begin toppling them in the years ahead.
One pleasant exception to the monotonous poplar forest was an occasional Osmanthus, a tree native to China that was in full, fragrant bloom. Osmanthus is valued for its delicate fruity floral apricot aroma. It is especially valued as an additive for tea and other beverages in the Far East and the fragrance is also used in perfumes.
Since the government owns the land in China it's a safe assumption that any beautification project is probably the work of a bureaucratic committee. We did see some examples of plantings that added landscape interest. Medians on new four-lane highways are planted with cypress, cedars and other ornamental conifers.
Many town squares and sidewalks were decorated with colorful plantings of marigolds, celosia, coleus and chrysanthemums but, interestingly, the flowers were always growing in pots and never directly in the ground. I saw no permanent flowerbeds or blooming perennials in China, although the pots were packed so closely together they resembled permanent plantings.
We observed tea being harvested on a plantation near the picturesque city of Guilin. To make the best-tasting tea, only the sprout and one leaf are picked from each tea bush and the harvesting process is repeated three times per year. The more tender the leaf, the more valuable the tea. I watched intently as three boys backed towards us through the long rows of tea bushes, spading the red soil between the rows. When they reached the end of the rows, their heads glistening with sweat, I noticed that each wore only light plastic thongs on bare feet.
Corn had just been harvested in the fields outside Beijing and Shanghai, and every spare flat surface was in use for drying both ripe ears and shelled corn. Corn stalks that had been cut by hand were stacked along the edges of fields and would later be burned and the ashes applied to fields as fertilizer.
There's an old custom in China of giving newlyweds pomegranate because the fruit's abundant seeds symbolized many children. Nowadays, with China's one-child policy, the custom has shifted to giving single-seeded peaches.
I had been told that the Chinese "eat anything with legs except a table" and our daily menus did, indeed, provide diversity: eel, snake, carp, turtle, scorpion, lotus root and myriad dishes we never did identify.
Despite the many antiquated customs and practices observed during my short stay, I came away from the trip believing that China is on the threshold of becoming a world leader. Tight government control of all aspects of life is giving away to a free-market economy and exciting opportunities for entrepreneurship. Look for this country that invented papermaking, gun powder, printing, the compass, the wheelbarrow, the rudder, the anchor and ice cream, to emerge in a decade or two as one of - if not the - world power.
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PUTTING DOWN ROOTS:
A Delightful Blend of
Gardening Wisdom, Wit
and Whimsy
$10 + $2 for shipping
by Cliff Johnson |
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