From the City to the Satoyama: A Decade of Mountain Farming by Two Scholar-Farmers

Have you ever fantasised about fleeing the city, returning to the countryside to farm, and embracing rural life? Have you ever harboured romantic notions of a “self-sufficient” existence? Yet real life on the land is far more complex and arduous than we imagine—and infinitely more moving.

Wenzizi and Changjiaoling are two people born in the 1980s who graduated from the Norwegian University of Life Sciences. Starting as complete novices to farming, they spent ten years shaping a “satoyama” in the foothills on Beijing’s outskirts—Gaia Wors Garden.

Unlike remote, untouched mountains, a “satoyama” is defined as the boundary between human settlements (li) and mountain wilderness (shan)—a transitional landscape where people and nature coexist. Across this 30-mu (approximately five-hectare) field, they cultivate vegetables, keep chickens, and run nature education programmes, while also writing, painting, and making malt syrup. They listen to the land, adapt to climate change, learn from the village’s veteran farmers, and share their space with insects, birds, trees, and plants.

Three years ago, they documented their farming journey in the book *So-Not-So-Soil: The Satoyama Life of Knowledge Farmers*, which struck a chord with many fellow growers. This year, they released a follow-up, *Farming in the Satoyama*, laying bare every trail they’ve blazed and every misstep they’ve made for readers, all while weaving in their deepest reflections on nature, ecology, and how we choose to live.

Click to learn more about their first book, *So-Not-So-Soil*

The conversation starts over this bowl of ‘mountain-sourced curry rice’, meandering into what exactly a ‘satoyama’ is, how humans and nature can share a landscape, and how farmers continually adapt to the stark whiplash of climate change. Hail wipes out the apricot crop, autumn greens are washed away by heavy rain, runner beans fail to set pods, yet the rice thrives remarkably thanks to a longer wet season. Amid such uncertainty, they hold fast to a remarkable mindset: rather than lamenting fate, simply get the seeds in the ground. Like all living things in the natural world, as long as growth continues, life endures. They speak of it with an easy grace, yet every detail is steeped in a decade’s worth of soil wisdom.

They also touch on writing, education, and the philosophy of living alongside the land, exploring how tending even a small patch of earth can transform one’s relationship with food and the natural world. The discussion delves deeper into the spiritual sustenance that comes from this partnership with the soil: how farming eases the anxieties of city life, and why, as they put it, ‘in the fields, no sorrow lingers past nightfall’.

Ultimately, we invite you to listen to this episode and join us as we step into this satoyama—a landscape alive with lemongrass, magpie nests, and the relentless promise of renewal.

Guests This Episode

Wenzi Zi ♀ Changjiaoling ♂

An urban couple born in the 1980s, both holding master’s degrees from the Norwegian University of Life Sciences, working in ecological conservation and environmental education. In 2014, they co-founded Gaia Vorse Garden and, in the outer suburbs 70 km from Beijing, began a *satoyama* lifestyle of growing and foraging their own food. Their ideal way of life: to maintain a balance between wilderness, farmland, and living spaces, allowing the rhythms of people and nature to unfold quietly upon the land.

Host This Episode

Tianle

Founding editor of Foodthink and convener of the Beijing Organic Farmers’ Market.