Learning to be a living seed in the countryside

I have written about how those who live on the land embrace the earth, heard the rustle of wind through wheat fields in films, and read of the profound connection farmers share with the soil. Yet, I found myself unable to feel the presence of the countryside or the land through the food I consumed daily. This contradiction sometimes left me with an indescribable sense of cognitive dissonance.

This spring, I signed up for Foodthink‘s “Ecological Agriculture Internship Programme” and travelled to Yinlin Farm in Conghua, Guangzhou. Stepping past the supermarket shelves, warehouses, and cold-chain logistics, I sought to set foot on actual soil to understand food and the memories of life it carries.

The journey from the old city centre of Guangzhou to Yinlin Village was a slow transition. It wasn’t until the manicured roadside greenery vanished, replaced by wild grass stubbornly pushing through cracks in the concrete and a diversifying array of trees, that I truly felt the breath of the countryside. As I stepped off the vehicle, the April heatwave hit me, accompanied by the humming of swarms of insects. I felt my body awaken, and thus began my vivid days at the Guangzhou farm.

I. Chickens, Birds, and Blueberry Trees

At this time, the blueberries were in full harvest. Those stepping on the plastic mulch were not just humans, but clucking chickens. The valley’s chickens would leave their coops, run across the grass, and leap towards the blueberry trees, strolling between the saplings in concentrated silence, waiting for a berry to fall. When a berry was knocked loose by a passing person, it must have made a resounding thud upon landing, for in an instant, several chickens would dash over, beaks open, to fight for it. Eventually, the chickens learned to follow people; they would quickly trail anyone who approached and peck at their shoes to signal their presence. As people walked along the picking paths, their bodies would brush against the branches, and ripe blueberries would tumble down. Following humans meant getting fruit—this was the consensus among the chickens in May.

The movement of chickens is also emphasised in Permaculture: Keep the chickens and the flocks moving! Let them eat overwintering pests in the spring, fallen ripe fruit in the summer, and glean leftover grains in the cereal fields in autumn; their scratching of the topsoil also helps aerate the land. Perhaps we should learn to look at the earth from a chicken’s perspective. After spending a long time outdoors, the chickens developed their own lives. They loved to leave droppings everywhere; the blue-black waste after a blueberry feast would glow under the sun, and we often felt this was simply another way for the blueberries to return to the soil. Occasionally, we would find smooth-walled sand pits under the blueberry trees, with a few fallen leaves at the bottom and chickens lingering nearby. We imagined these were pits scratched out by the chickens, where an egg had once rested upon the leaves.

The density of the blueberry trees also attracted fruit-eating birds. At one point, we tried to drive them away using bird-call recordings through loudspeakers, but the linguistic gap between species remained far beyond our understanding, and the birdsong never ceased. Blueberry trees crave sunlight; in the rainy April of the lowlands, berries were almost nonexistent, with only two or three appearing in certain spots. The birds always beat us to the ripe berries at the summit, chirping happily as they feasted in the thickets. While the chickens were visible, the birds were merely audible; by the time our eyes caught up, only empty branches remained. By late April, blueberries began growing wildly at the summit, and the birds sang even more loudly. This drove Master Ma to hide in the blueberry thickets with the workers, searching for traces left by the greedy birds; sometimes, before you even saw another soul on the mountain, you would hear Master Ma’s shouting.

Master Ma would cup her palms like a megaphone, loudly emitting sounds like “hu-du-du” or “hu-lu-lu” to scare the birds. She claimed these were bird calls; we remained sceptical, yet after a round of these sounds, the fruit-eating birds would indeed settle down for a while. In May, the mountains were drenched in rain, leaving both the weather and our moods muddy. The blueberries, soaked by the rain, became waterlogged, and more were knocked to the ground by the downpours—too many for the birds and chickens to eat, all left for the soil. As June drew to a close, the blueberries vanished, and the lychee trees in the valley bore fruit. The birds and chickens returned to the lychee trees, though the sand pits remained beneath the blueberry trees.

In early summer at Yinlin, the wild grass grew frantically. We weeded the fields under a scorching sun, the roar of the weeding machine ringing in our ears. Our noses adapted to the mingled scents of the compost, and our bodies became covered in grass debris, leaving our hair smelling of raw greenery. Many lovegrass seeds clung to our trouser legs, using their tiny hooks to latch onto us and travel to new places, where they would quickly take root and sprout, slender and lush.

The world through the eyes of the lovegrass must be vertical and three-dimensional. Its roots explore the darkness and moisture below, its stem chases the sunlight and wind above, and its seeds travel horizontally in all directions, hitching a ride on anything that moves to explore new territories. It entrusts its future, without hesitation, to those of us passing by.

The black goats are our “colleagues” when it comes to weeding on the farm, but they eat almost anything, which causes a great deal of trouble for the other staff. They have a habit of appearing silently in small groups, like a flowing black shadow. Working alongside them is both a joy and a frustration. In the morning, we might feel relieved that they have cleared a patch of weeds; by the afternoon, we might be heartbroken to find that a companion’s freshly planted seedlings or lush herbs have become their midday feast. The goats’ absolute favourite is the Spanish needle; they are connoisseurs of wild grass. Bypassing the tough, coarse stalks, they use their nimble lips to precisely pluck the freshest, tenderest leaves from the very top. This is precisely where the Spanish needle is most vibrant, preparing to flower and seed.

On one occasion, Huang Xing, a companion at the farm, followed the black goats and gathered some of the tender Spanish needle for the kitchen. The greens tasted wonderful on the dinner table, with a subtle, earthy astringency. Everyone jokingly dubbed such tender shoots “Black Goat’s Selection”. Huang Xing remarked that perhaps this is how we ought to be: eating what grows naturally between heaven and earth, just like the goats.

III. Corn Like Water

In May, the farm’s corn saw a harvest amidst the storms. Counting the days, this batch of corn arrived on this land almost at the same time as I did; they are, in a sense, my contemporaries. While picking corn in the field, the experienced aunts only need a quick squeeze of the ear to know if the grains are plump enough to be classed as “Grade A” (the farm grades its produce as Grade A, Grade B, or substandard). I was in awe of this skill—I had to feel around the entire cob carefully just to confirm there were no missing kernels. For the days that followed, corn practically dominated our diet.

From an urban perspective, corn is always presented as a row of plump, golden grains. I had never considered that it could be flawed, or shaped by the wind and rain: the tassels at the top of the corn stalk rely on the wind to shake pollen down onto the silks of the ear below. Each silk receives the powder, nurturing a single kernel. However, days of relentless rain soaked the silks, interrupting this process of pollination.

Imagine this: on a corn cob, the kernels should be tightly packed within a limited space, forming a perfect, dense tessellation. But when pollination fails, it is as if a water-filled vessel suddenly springs a leak, and the order collapses—the kernels begin to “flow” and spread towards the free boundaries. Every kernel remains a living seed.

Thinking back to supermarket shelves or fresh produce apps, corn seems to be a model product of industrial aesthetics: straight as a ruler, with kernels so plump they follow the golden ratio, like a static, bright yellow sculpture showcasing a perfect order sculpted by capital. On the farm, however, a cob’s journey from field to table is a continuous evolution. As it transforms from a living seed into food, it takes many forms: curved, petite, plump on one side and sparse on the other… the corn on the farm is liquid; it breathes, grows, and morphs upon the earth.

“But this kind of corn is actually sweeter, with a richer flavour!” Feng Ge, who spent many years working for a production company before returning to the countryside, chuckled. He picked up another ear and peeled back the husk to reveal kernels of varying sizes.

IV. The Unfathomable Trees

At dusk after the rain, from the Pengcheng Life Farm adjacent to Yinlin Farm, one can gaze upon the most beautiful moment of Yinlin Village. Standing on the heights, the entire village seems immersed in a brilliant sunset. Nearby, lychee trees scattered about are adorned with raindrops, their small red dots climbing the branches, evoking both delight and craving. As I walked among them with Teacher Pengcheng, he patiently answered my questions about varieties, maintenance, and the sandbags hanging from the branches. The way he frowned in thought reminded me of the silent ancient trees on the mountains—when a person roots themselves in a piece of land for long enough and tends to the trees with such care, there comes a moment when they, too, become a tree.

Pengcheng told me that a few years ago, while practising natural farming, he attempted to “dwarf” the lychee trees by hanging half-bags of sand on the tips of the branches, pulling them away from the sky. “Shortening the distance for nutrient transport and allowing more light should lead to more fruit.” Sitting by the tea table, Pengcheng spoke of these attempts with a hint of resignation in his voice, “As for the results… they were less than satisfactory.” He pointed toward a distant lychee tree, “Look at that ‘shelter tree’; it was planted originally just to block pesticides drifting from the neighbour’s plot. I never tended to it, just let it grow wild. Yet this year, it has produced an abundance of fruit.” He gave a soft laugh, “Trees really are unfathomable.”

This year, he plans to implement enzyme farming—using enzymes produced through fermentation and composite bacterial colonies to protect and nourish the fruit trees. Whether this will be effective remains to be seen; it is all still a process of trial and error. In his spare time, Pengcheng shared a story about “conversing” with all living things. The area was once plagued by termites, which spread from the trunks of the lychee trees right into the corners of the kitchen. One quiet afternoon, Pengcheng decided to open his heart and sincerely speak to the termites about his current situation, his troubles, and the boundaries of their coexistence. The termites continued their frantic activity, and he withdrew sheepishly. Yet, the following day, the number of termites on the main trunk had noticeably decreased; a few days later, they had abandoned the trunk entirely, leaving behind even the nests they had built. Within those drifting words, the intention of seeking respect and understanding seemed to have truly reached them.

V. Lychees off the Branch

Not far from Pengcheng’s farm lie the hills of the Liu and Li estates, where the footprints of several generations remain. While picking lychees with some local women, and to satisfy my curiosity about the blueberry orchards’ past, they began to tell me the history of this land: their fathers had once logged these mountains to clear the land, and their grandfathers had hunted among these peaks, while they themselves had planted the lychee trees when reclaiming the wilderness thirty to fifty years ago. In recent years, the land has changed hands several times, and now blueberry trees almost blanket the entire valley. Only in the ancient lychee groves at the foot of the mountain and among the few old trees scattered at the summit can one still taste the essence of time.

The Nuomici and Guiwei lychee trees before us were those planted by the women when they first broke the land. Guo Rui, the manager of the Yinlin farm, eyed the thick roots and estimated the trees to be around fifty years old. But the women, who had lived through it, were adamant: “How could they be that old? They were planted on a fine day in the eighties—they’re only thirty!” Nimble and agile, they climbed the thick branches in a few swift moves, deftly pruning branches laden with fruit. One must be careful beneath the trees; a momentary lapse in attention could leave you struck by falling lychees, snapping twigs, or even beehives and bird nests suspended among the branches. Yet, it is the fruit hanging highest, closest to the sky, that always possesses the richest flavour.

These lychee trees are the same age as I am—both planted on this planet at the end of the 20th century, only to meet twenty-five years later on this fertile soil. For Guo Rui, learning to care for the twenty-odd lychee trees planted by his parents is a challenge he must face.

For years, Guo Rui has followed the path of *wu wei*—the art of non-action—with his family’s trees: letting them grow freely, applying minimal intervention, and focusing instead on continuous observation. Pointing to a strip of exposed scar on the bark, he said, “This tree once had a large patch of bark eaten away by insects. Upon discovering it, we pruned the top branches to let the sunlight pour down, which finally drove the pests away. The fruit it bore that year was sour and astringent; the quality was terrible.” Imagining the tree’s nutrient-carrying vessels blocked, with the sourness accumulating in the fruit, the lychees of that year were like tears rolling down the tree. Now, new bark is healing upwards from the edges of the wound, slowly enveloping the old trauma.

Guo Rui recalled that the lush green land in front of the café was once filled with citrus trees, with those twenty-odd lychee trees interspersed among them. It takes seven to eight years for a lychee tree to bear fruit, and to fill this long interim period, the previous generation relied on citrus trees for economic gain. Through conversations with another elderly villager, Zhong-ge, we pieced together the evolution of cash crops in Yinlin Village. In the eighties, before the outbreak of Citrus Greening, Yinlin was covered in citrus groves; and before the large-scale shift to citrus, the original crop was rice. Today, however, the price of lychees pales in comparison to the labour costs of harvesting, and villagers choose to find other livelihoods by working away from home. “These (old lychee trees) have been forgotten! No one picks them, and no one looks after them,” the elderly villager told us, beneath the vast shade of a three-hundred-year-old lychee tree at the base of Mount Guanyin.

Looking up from beneath the ancient lychee tree, I often imagined how mysterious and abundant the world in the canopy must be. Perhaps Guo Rui cannot forget these scenes either; he spoke of an ancient lychee tree that once stood beside the village primary school. As a child, after school, he and his friends would often play hide-and-seek among its branches. It was the most unforgettable tree of his youth. Later, the tree was felled, the village roads were paved, and fewer and fewer people in the village knew how to climb. His friends scattered to far-flung places. “The taste of the lychees is still there,” he smiled, before recounting his personal ranking of lychee flavours. He felt that even between southern cities that were not far apart, the flavour of lychees would shift with subtle climatic differences—flavours, like people, drift and migrate elsewhere. After all, both trees and humans must strike their roots deep into the soil.

VI. After Returning to the City

On the day I left Yinlin, the sunshine was just right, and the air still held the scent of damp earth and ripened guava. Leaving early that morning, I saw Guo Rui pruning branches, while villagers passed by on the roadside carrying baskets of vegetables freshly picked from the fields. I recalled the kitchen at midday, where I would rack my brains trying to imagine what the meal would look like while facing a pile of unfamiliar vegetables, the air thick with the smell of soil, leaves, and hot oil. I suddenly realised that my days in the village had quietly changed the way I viewed food. Food is not a point-to-point supply chain, but a cycle—from the land to the palm, and back to the land.

I began to learn how to recognise vegetables and soil: which patch of earth produced the lushest, softest plantain, and which plant’s skin grew thick under high temperatures. I also slowly came to understand that communal eating in Yinlin was not merely about sharing a meal, but a relationship of mutual care: we consume what the land gives, and in return, we must tend to the land’s exhaustion.

Later, on a certain afternoon after returning to the city, I found myself wandering aimlessly through a chilled, air-conditioned supermarket. When I picked up a perfectly shaped tomato, I was suddenly struck by a familiar pang of disorientation—what kind of land did this tomato come from? Had it also swayed in the wind and rain, ripening to the sound of insects? What did its seeds look like?

I found no answers on the supermarket labels; I simply stood before the self-checkout machine, scanning the tomato. The price displayed on the electronic screen was still merely its exchange value as a commodity. But the vast life story erased behind that number—the temperature of the soil, the cycle of the seasons, the soft connection between human and land—is something that cannot be measured by digits.

Foodthink Author

 Jianing

Writer and visual artist. Long-term focus on the intersection of climate, body, and perception, exploring the mutual co-creation of humans and their environment through writing, sound, and field practice. Recent writing focuses on land knowledge and the micro-experiences of daily ecology, seeking to draw closer to more farms and understand the land.

 

 

 

Ecological Agriculture Internship Programme

The Lianhe Project’s “Ecological Agriculture Internship Programme” was launched by Foodthink in 2021. It aims to provide support for young people interested in ecological agriculture and for established ecological farms, allowing the youth to master farming knowledge and techniques through practice, while ensuring that the experience of veteran farmers is summarised and passed down. Simultaneously, it supplies high-quality talent to farms and injects vitality into rural communities.

To date, four recruitment cycles have been completed, supporting over 80 partners in entering more than ten ecological farms across the country for internships lasting from three months to one year.

All photographs in this article were taken by the author

Editor: Zheng Yuyang