Travel report: Complemedis and Phytax (www.phytax.ch), together with TCM specialists, visit farms that grow ginger in south-west China's Guizhou province and ginseng in north-east China's Jilin province.
Guizhou is an almost unknown province in the west, south of Sichuan, east of Yunnan and west of Hunan. On the approach to the capital Guiyang, I wondered where there could possibly be a place to land. Pointed karst mountains rose up everywhere like oversized molehills. The capital with its 3.5 million inhabitants is nestled in this tangle of hills and valleys. Like everywhere in urban areas in China, life is pulsating and motorways, underground railways and high-speed train lines are being diligently built. The topography is treated as if it didn't exist, and so it looks like a model layout projected onto a gigantic scale: holes in the mountains through which roads and railways run, viaducts at unimaginable heights.
We drive to the Huangguoshu waterfall, the largest in Asia. And Wherever great things are expected, there are also large crowds of people who want to see it. Nature is the backdrop, framed and tamed by today's man, sometimes with paths adapted to today's Chinese. adapted to today's Chinese, i.e. accessible even in high heels. The spray blows in swathes over everything, but that's why there are plastic skins that you can you can put on. To be honest, I would have imagined the waterfall to be bigger by Chinese standards. I read that it is 70 metres high and 100 metres wide. The Rhine Falls are 25 metres high and 150 metres metres wide. Huang Guo Shu means yellow fruit tree. Perhaps a type of Melia; Melia azedarach. I don't want to get hung up on that. In I will also remember the evening meal in a greenhouse converted into a greenhouse. We visitors are served rice wine by the and dancing games. Local young men show off their testosterone levels by beating a tub of sticky rice, which, the longer you beat it with the sticks, the stickier the strings become. sticky threads. Only with the greatest effort can the wooden hammers from the mass.
However, our main aim is to visit a ginger plantation. Our main herb supplier has started a joint venture and wants to market ginger. market ginger. It is increasingly being grown for a variety of purposes. cultivated. Its ingredients are valuable, but with the increasing demand demand, the pollutants in the batches available on the market are also increasing. batches available on the market. Monocultures require the use of fertilisers and pesticides. The aim of our partner's business is to cultivate ginger in an area in an area that still has largely intact and pollutant-free soils. and pollutant-free soils. We pull out a few plants, take them home home and analyse them in the laboratory: indeed! Pesticides are not detectable. We wish the company the best of luck that it will still be good quality, clean produce in a few years' time. can be produced.
And then the journey takes us in a completely opposite direction: to the far north-east the far north-east, the province of Jilin. We land in the capital Changchun with its population of around 7 million. That too city engraved in my modest brain as a provincial nest, to which I hadn't had the slightest knowledge of until then. That hasn't changed much didn't change much after the visit, because I was already travelling by bus to the border with North Korea. We looked across the border river with border river, which we followed for 200 kilometres. Every few kilometres, the bus had to kilometres, the bus had to slow down to walking speed so that the surveillance cameras cameras could register it. The route also had to be route had to be changed because on this particular day, the almighty great leader leader Kim Jong Un was once again just a few kilometres away from us wanted to detonate a nuclear device just a few kilometres away from us. As a result China pulled together a few military units at the border.
Perhaps because that is what the rules of the game demand, because people on the other side of the river are actually friendly. After all, the same people live on this side of the river, the same ethnic group, Koreans. There is a sign at the entrance to every village stating that the inhabitants are asked not to harbour people from across the border. An indication that exactly the opposite is done. After all, they are related to each other. China also offers the North Koreans the opportunity to do a bit of business on their soil. For example, we visit a restaurant run by North Koreans, where friendly staff serve us music and food and, of course, we have to dance together again. Only the poor condition of the pretty crew's teeth gives us a hint that not everything is in the best condition in North Korea.
We are in Jilin to see how ginseng is cultivated and processed. Demand is high, wild ginseng is as good as extinct and the overexploitation of nature has left many wounds. We visit conventional plantations where all possible means are used, i.e. massive amounts of fertilisers and pesticides, and in contrast we visit places where production is close to nature. We also take samples home and send them to the laboratory. Once again, we are delighted when we receive the lab results: The search for hundreds of pesticides was largely unsuccessful. Production is costly: The soils are totally depleted after a few years and new cultivation areas have to be found. Old soils need several years to regenerate. Today, plants are cultivated and then released into the wild by reclaiming a piece of land in a remote area. A visit to a ginseng museum and a ginseng night market are also part of the programme. And of course, good local food is always part of the programme. Our tour guides have organised everything perfectly and do their utmost to fulfil our wishes. The supporting programme also takes us to the Changbai Mountains with the Tianchi Heaven Lake, which belongs partly to China and partly to North Korea. The Erdaogou Gorge in the valley with its huge basalt columns is also a sight not to be missed. It was a wonderful trip. Thanks to the tour guides.
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