From the Guoshanyao to the ‘Chosen Foragers’: Termite mushrooms spark a foraging frenzy
Foodthink’s Perspective
This article was supported by the Foodthink Collaborative Creation Project and written in the summer of 2024. The “Guoshan Yao” series seeks to explore how, amidst the migrations of the modern era, the Yao people have become entwined with urbanisation and the market economy through food. Taking the Yaoke Market in Ruyuan County, Shaoguan, as a new starting point, the author returns to Yao villages and connects with local small-scale farmers to tell emotive stories of the people and the food rooted in these mountain lands.
“It’s only just the Dragon Boat Festival—are they growing this early this year?”
Qiaoyun, who was at home resting during her pregnancy, called us in a flurry, worried we would miss the peak of the 2024 picking season. She urgently urged us to head to Ruyuan County in Shaoguan, Guangdong, to pick termite mushrooms, known locally as “Summer Solstice mushrooms”.
Ruyuan is a Yao autonomous county. The plains are primarily inhabited by indigenous residents, while the mountains are dotted with Hakka villages and Yao settlements. Among them is a branch of the Yao people known as the “Guoshan Yao”, who have historically migrated between deep mountain villages. Since the 1990s, driven by poverty alleviation policies and the construction of reservoirs, Hakka and Yao settlements have gradually relocated to the plains, creating a mixed ecological community of Yao and Hakka residents.
We are “Springflut”, an interdisciplinary and cross-cultural creative studio. Our connection with the Guoshan Yao began through a participatory art project within the Yao village community. Over the last three years, as our fieldwork deepened, we have travelled back and forth between the remote mountain villages and the plains of the county town alongside our Yao friends. Regardless of how the environment shifts, we have always checked in with one another through the Guoshan Yao dining table and their food; this has become the foundation of our relationship with the Yao people—after all, eating is a matter of great importance. It was in this way that the story of the “Summer Solstice mushroom” was unexpectedly discovered.
Unlike the wild winter mushrooms found in the deep mountain villages, “Summer Solstice mushrooms” grow on the alluvial plains and hills of the Beijiang tributary of the Pearl River system, adjacent to Shaoguan Danxia Airport. Once harvested, these fresh mushrooms are sent via express courier or cold-chain transport to farm-to-table restaurants, high-end eateries, and markets in the Pearl River Delta, eventually reaching the consumer’s plate. Often used in chicken soups or stir-fries, they are beloved by diners for their fresh, savoury umami. In Ruyuan, prices fluctuate daily, typically ranging between 120 and 500 yuan per kilogram.
The market demand for a taste of this freshness constantly stimulates the nerves of the picking army in this Northern Guangdong county. Every summer, a “mushroom fever” sweeps across the region, triggering a picking craze—eucalyptus and bamboo forests are illuminated by the beams of powerful torches as the mushroom-picking army wages a nocturnal campaign.
Even when swept up in the discourse of urban-rural migration and rural revitalisation, the Guoshan Yao maintain an accepting and open attitude towards life. Their fluid, flexible, and resilient wisdom continues to be passed down secretly within the community. The following story of the Guoshan Yao and the “Summer Solstice mushroom” is a microcosm of this “philosophy of fluidity”.
I. From “Is it edible?” to “It sells well”
The appearance of “winter mushrooms” in the Yao village had already shattered our stereotype that the land of the deep mountain Yao villages was barren and lacking in forest produce. The “Summer Solstice mushroom”, however, provided a breakthrough, allowing us to understand how Qiaoyun’s family adapted to their migration from the mountains to the plains.
Qiaoyun’s father was once a hunter, and her mother was a farmer and embroidery artist. In the 1990s, the family ended generations of “mountain-crossing” life in the Nanling mountains of North Guangdong and moved to the plains near the Shaoguan Danxia Airport. They had to relearn how to farm on this flat land and build their own house, brick by brick.
Qiaoyun was only in primary school at the time. In her memory, this was a period of leaving behind her childhood friends in the deep Yao village and meeting Han classmates at a new school. It was on her walk home from school that Qiaoyun first brought “Summer Solstice mushrooms” to her parents.
“Back in primary school, I’d walk home with my Han classmates and see lots of mushrooms by the roadside. My classmates said we should dig them up to eat at home, and I thought it was fun, so I did. But my father adamantly refused to eat them, saying he’d never seen them in the mountains and feared they were poisonous. I told him the Han classmates’ families ate them, but he didn’t believe me and threw them away. Another time, I picked a whole basketful, and he just gave them to a friend; I remember that man even took the basket and never returned it.”
Having dealt extensively with the deep mountains, Qiaoyun’s parents were wary of the “Summer Solstice mushrooms” they had never seen before, and were initially unsure if they were edible. It was only later, when the neighbours in the new Yao village started eating them, that Qiaoyun’s parents allowed the family to do so.
It was around 2016 that “Summer Solstice mushrooms” began appearing in the markets near Qiaoyun’s home. Before that, “we only picked a few for ourselves. When they grew in abundance, they just rotted in the fields or by the roadside, ignored by everyone. Occasionally we’d pick some to give to relatives in the county town, because many people didn’t even know they grew nearby. We were among the first to discover them.”
The Pearl River Delta’s passion for “freshness” unlocked the potential of the wild mushroom market. From the “litchi mushrooms” in the orchards of Zengcheng to the “Summer Solstice mushrooms” of the Shaoguan mountains, mushroom traders have continuously expanded their procurement maps. Compared to the termite mushrooms from Yunnan, those within the province can be transported faster, meaning they are fresher and offer better value for the consumer. As a type of wild termite mushroom, the “Summer Solstice mushroom” did not appear in the edible fungi lists of North Guangdong’s agricultural wholesale markets, nor was it included in the national “Vegetable Basket” project, which led to the formation of its own “underground market”. On the “fringes” of the market, a tug-of-war between foragers, consumers, and buyers sparks this “mushroom fever” year after year.
And harvesting Summer Solstice mushrooms has become a new livelihood option for villagers in the Yao-Hakka regions of northern Guangdong.
II. The Summer Pop-up Harvesting Army
Because they are seasonal, these mushrooms cannot provide a year-round living. However, the soaring profits still attract a large number of “gig workers” from various ethnic backgrounds to join in.
In 2024, Qiaoyun was pregnant and unable to venture deep into the hills and wilderness, so she took a stroll near her front door and unexpectedly stumbled upon a cluster of Summer Solstice mushrooms. “They were growing in the grass, just one fence away from the airport, and they were luscious.” Meanwhile, Qiaoyun’s mother found several clusters under their own banana trees; both mother and daughter sold them to a buyer immediately.
This “buyer” was Qiaoyun’s best friend, Xiuping. They were born and raised together in a remote mountain Yao village and later moved to the plains together; they remained neighbours even after marrying and starting their own families. Xiuping and her husband were once merely members of the harvesting army; now, they are in their third year as buyers.
They know the Summer Solstice mushrooms inside out. Xiuping is skilled at observing their growth patterns: “The growth of Summer Solstice mushrooms is linked to the solar terms; they grow in waves during the periods of Xiaoman, Mangzhong, Xiazhi, and Xiaoshu.” Experience has taught her that the solar terms are merely signals; the mushrooms do not always emerge on schedule. In 2024, for instance, they only grew after Mangzhong had passed.
She times her entry into the market perfectly, typically for a window of “about a month”. Once the season ends, everyone returns to their other livelihoods. With the mushroom business concluded, Xiuping and her husband prepare to return to the mountains to run a small shop, as “lots of people come to play in the water during the summer holidays”.
Not everyone is willing to risk capital and take on more risk to transition into a buyer for higher returns. Most, like Qiaoyun, treat mushroom picking as a temporary side-hustle to earn some extra money for the household, as the work is both arduous and unstable.
Fifty-five-year-old A-Feng, a local smallholder, sells her own vegetables whenever there is a market day. During the Summer Solstice period, her stall features Summer Solstice mushrooms in red plastic bags, the bold colour signalling to passers-by that “this season’s hot items are here”.
A-Feng belongs to the ranks of “amateur harvesters”. In the summer, she adds “mushroom picking” to her multiple jobs, working around the clock. “I leave at 2 am to pick mushrooms and stay out until dawn, just for this small bag, less than half a jin. Then I take my home-grown vegetables and set up my stall.” After all this, A-Feng spends the next day harvesting tobacco.
On the village roads at night, we also encountered many “recreational” amateur harvesters. Groups of young people on motorbikes would zoom past, expertly scanning the woods with searchlights. For these waves of harvesters, picking Summer Solstice mushrooms is like a seasonal game of chance, similar to a night-hiking group; they joke and laugh along the way, not particularly concerned with the final yield.
Only a small minority follow the season to become professional harvesters. Every summer, they completely set aside their “main jobs” to devote themselves fully to the harvest; some migrant workers even resign from their posts to join in. For them, the mushrooms are their sole source of income during this period. They are nocturnal and efficiency-driven, mostly working alone or in pairs.
Some spend over ten hours a day picking, with all-nighters being common. They aren’t just playing; unlike the amateurs who rely on luck, they rely on over a decade of experience. Working in focused silence, they can harvest over ten jin of mushrooms in a single night—equivalent to an amateur’s entire summer yield.
As a new flush of Summer Solstice mushrooms emerged, Pingxiu, a 61-year-old Hakka harvester, achieved a remarkable feat, gathering over five kilograms of prime specimens—from half-open caps to ‘bullet-heads’—in a single night. “I set out at 4 am and arrive at the market shortly after 8,” she says. Because the harvest was thin that day, the buying price had climbed; rarity, as always, drove the value. By the time she reached the market, her haul had already been snapped up by a regular buyer.
This professional harvester does more than just stick to a picking schedule; she is constantly seeking ways to improve her efficiency. “I actually spent a whole year in the neighbouring village learning the craft of harvesting these mushrooms,” she explains, chatting with us as she uses a blade to scrape soil from the fungi, her Mandarin peppered with a thick Hakka dialect.
Once the brief mushroom season ends, the termite nests—with which the mushrooms share a symbiotic relationship—enter a period of dormancy or migrate short distances, preparing for next year’s crop. The vast army of mushroom pickers, comprised of various gig workers, disperses rapidly at the end of summer to seek their next line of work, only to regroup swiftly when the following summer returns.
Amidst this, there is one group whose learning does not cease with the end of summer. They share and exchange knowledge internally, spontaneously transforming local wisdom about the Summer Solstice mushroom into an oral tradition. Through constant refinement and transmission, their expertise has reached a level that other locals can hardly match: this group is the Guoshan Yao, to which Qiaoyun belongs.
III.The “Chosen” Mushroom Pickers
“It’s not just about knowing how to pick; you have to be able to climb mountains. The Yao people are incredible—they climb so fast you can’t even keep up,” a professional Hakka harvester told us with genuine respect. While accompanying Qiaoyun on her mountain patrols and climbing through Yao villages with the elders, we realised just how agile they are; even in our youth and strength, we struggled to keep pace. We wondered how these deep-mountain skills were being flourished on the plains, and how years of accumulated natural knowledge helped the Guoshan Yao stand out among the army of mushroom harvesters.
Urged on by Qiaoyun, we finally arrived in Ruyuan, Shaoguan, on the day of the summer solstice. “The peak season this year was during the Dragon Boat Festival; you’ve missed it. For this solstice, we’ll just have to try our luck.” Timing is half the battle when it comes to picking. Clearly, we had missed the boat, and Qiaoyun, feeling sorry for us, opened a short-video app to let us cram some knowledge about summer solstice mushrooms.
“This account belongs to a former middle-school classmate of mine. He owns several large cold stores now and deals in the wholesale trade of summer solstice mushrooms. He posts videos frequently to let everyone know the moment they start sprouting so people can head out and pick them.” The videos Qiaoyun showed us were all filmed in the dead of night. Under the glare of a strong torch, there was a slight reflection beneath some dead branches. A portly middle-aged man lay on the grass, speaking in the Yao language with exaggerated expressions, proclaiming the arrival of a new batch of mushrooms to the world. Lying on his side, he gently brushed aside some dead leaves, revealing dozens of summer solstice mushrooms to the camera. “Of course, they aren’t as easy to find as he makes them seem. He does it to encourage people to go out and to hype up the market price. But it still serves as a signal that it’s time to pick.”
As in any typical county town, short videos are a vital platform for entertainment, socialising, shopping, and sharing local information in Ruyuan, Shaoguan. Qiaoyun showed us how to use location tags to quickly find updates from locals picking mushrooms. “So many people are posting videos today that a new round of summer solstice mushrooms must be growing. You could give it a go tonight. They might be hard to find when they first sprout, so just treat your first trip as a way to gain experience.”
Having said that, Qiaoyun took us next door to Xiuping’s house to see the mushrooms for ourselves. Xiuping’s “home warehouse” actually consisted of several freezers with insulating film wrapped around the glass doors to maintain a constant temperature for the mushrooms. “Summer solstice mushrooms are generally graded as ‘bullet-heads’, unopened caps, half-open caps, and fully open caps, with prices decreasing accordingly,” Xiuping explained, carefully showing us the sorted mushrooms neatly arranged in red plastic basins. “Those from bamboo forests are whiter, whereas those from eucalyptus forests are more yellow or black. We usually eat the bamboo forest ones, as bamboo forests aren’t fertilised like eucalyptus plantations are.”
When it came to picking techniques, Qiaoyun produced a set of polished small trowels and spades. “You have to use tools to dig up summer solstice mushrooms because they’re partly buried. But you must be very careful; if you dig too deep, you’ll destroy the termite nest underneath, and they won’t grow there next year. If you’re too shallow, you might snap the mushroom.” She also told us to bring searchlights, noting that white light is supposedly more effective than yellow.
“It’s too hot during the day, and you’re more likely to run into snakes. Some people start looking in the evening, but most don’t head out until night. Firstly, it’s cooler; secondly, they’re easier to find, because when you shine a searchlight at night, any reflection is likely to be a summer solstice mushroom. Some go as late as the early hours and stay out all night—you need a lot of nerve for that, as it’s pitch black. Once, my mum and I accidentally ended up picking mushrooms by a grave; it scared us to death.”
After receiving Qiaoyun’s verbal crash course, we took the motorbike to a nearby bamboo forest. Motorbikes are more manoeuvrable than cars, allowing us to reach more secluded corners. After searching through five different bamboo groves, we finally found two wild mushrooms, but they looked suspicious, so we had to send photos to Qiaoyun for identification. “Those are both poisonous; don’t pick them. Summer solstice mushrooms grow in clusters of dozens. If there’s only one, it’s definitely not it.”
Having better understood the “clustering” nature of summer solstice mushrooms, we decided to venture into the newly “viral” eucalyptus forests. Qiaoyun mentioned that in 2023, the mushrooms there were abundant and attracted crowds of pickers, so it was worth trying our luck.
As buyers, the Yao people disseminate knowledge of the Summer Solstice mushroom and establish market rules through a commercial lens. For foragers like Qiaoyun, however, experience teaches a different lesson: to live at the mercy of nature, one must first master the rules of both heaven and earth.
In her mind, Qiaoyun can piece together a growth map of the Summer Solstice mushroom, much like the maps of wild herbs and vegetables in the Yao villages. This knowledge was earned over years of traversing the land on foot and gradually formed through the exchange of information within the community.
Thus, rather than saying the Yao are ‘chosen’ mushroom hunters, it is more accurate to say their ‘superpower’ stems from an intimate familiarity with the mountains and the soil. The Guoshan Yao have migrated for generations, building villages in the steep Great Yao Mountains and clearing slopes for crops or fir forests. By living off the mountains for centuries, they have developed a heightened sensitivity to the land, the forests, and the climate, accumulating a unique body of natural knowledge. Faced with the mountains and forests, they do not feel fear or opposition, but seek to know and understand them; their relationship with nature is much like the symbiotic bond between the Summer Solstice mushroom and the termite.
For the Guoshan Yao, the plains and hills—and the Summer Solstice mushrooms they hold—are simply a new natural environment and a new species of wild fungus. Drawing upon a heritage of shifting cultivation and nomadic living rooted in movement and change, the Guoshan Yao are adapting to the life of modern urbanisation. They are acutely aware of the fragility of the bond between humanity and nature; consequently, they do not seek to control it with anxiety, but rather seek a way to coexist with grounded humility. This allows them to uncover the secrets of the Summer Solstice mushroom more quickly and comprehensively, and to find a new way of dwelling with nature amidst urbanisation.
IV. A Compensation for Living with Nature
In contrast, picking Summer Solstice mushrooms is more of a psychological compensation for Qiaoyun—a substitute for the mountain lifestyle. Whether it is the Summer Solstice mushroom or any other wild fungus is secondary; what she needs is a reason to continually return to the Yao Mountains or climb the lowland hills. By searching for seasonal wild vegetables and fruits according to her memory, she evokes childhood recollections of the Yao Mountains—an overwhelming emotional force that sustains her. These emotions, swept up in the discourse of rural-urban migration in the new era, can only cling to food, a method of cooking, or a specific taste.
For the Guoshan Yao, the Summer Solstice mushroom is a node connecting the new environment with the old world. In the new Yao village where Qiaoyun lives, many young people venture out in small groups to the hills after work to pick mushrooms. “It’s like picking wild berries in the mountains when I was a child,” Qiaoyun recalls of her childhood in the deep mountain Yao villages.
“When we first moved here, the airport was idle, so we would take the cattle there, and there were plenty of wild fruits to eat nearby. Later, once we discovered the Summer Solstice mushroom, we often went to the nearby hills to pick them; there were so many, and you didn’t have to walk far. Then the airport reopened, transitioning from military to civilian use, and the distant hills were contracted out for eucalyptus forests or five-finger peach. By 2024, there were fewer Summer Solstice mushrooms to be found near home, so you have to go further afield.”
Qiaoyun’s home is only fifty metres from the airport, where the sounds of bird-scaring cannons fire repeatedly. Having experience picking mushrooms and wild berries, she is acutely aware of the shrinking natural environment around her. With the expansion of the airport, this new Yao village is about to face another round of relocation.
The ancestors of the Guoshan Yao crossed peak after peak in search of new land for shifting cultivation. Qiaoyun’s generation searches for Summer Solstice mushrooms amidst bamboo and eucalyptus groves—both for a new livelihood and to seek a space for coexistence with nature, like a nostalgic retreat in the gaps of urbanisation. Because of their frequent migrations, Qiaoyun’s father learned how to build houses, transitioning from a hunter and farmer to a contractor and craftsman; in his spare time, he is always out on his motorbike looking for places to fish.
Qiaoyun’s mother still farms, growing rice and vegetables for the family, transitioning from the mountains to the plains. Occasionally, she goes into the wild to pick the herbs used in Yao baths.
As for Qiaoyun, beyond growing chillies and greens in the village flowerbeds, she searches for seasonal wild vegetables and fruits by the nearby woods and streams. “Sometimes I go back to the mountain villages; some wild greens and fruits only grow there, and they taste better.” Through their respective ways of life, they interpret their emotional memories of the Yao villages and mountains.
As the process of urbanisation accelerates, the Yao villages gradually grow quiet, and the Guoshan Yao people are scattered by migration. People like Qiaoyun can only seek their lost emotional memories within new environments and new foods, intermittently practising a life lived in harmony with nature. The food memories of the deep mountain Yao villages are deeply etched into their taste buds.
Unlike most places that use chicken soup to stew termite mushrooms, Qiaoyun prefers using pig’s face. One only needs to add ginger and salt for seasoning and simmer over medium heat until the broth turns milky white and the pig’s gums and skin become crisp. Such a mushroom soup is fragrant without being greasy, allowing the Summer Solstice mushrooms to become even sweeter and fresher, without the heavy taste of chicken fat overpowering the flavour. Rather than simply eating the mushrooms, it is more like cooking the pig’s face—a prized ingredient meticulously prepared during the annual pig slaughter banquet, where no part of the pig is wasted.
V. Side Story: Summer Solstice Mushrooms Also Cross Mountains
As the season for Summer Solstice mushrooms drew to a close, Qiaoyun gave birth to a new life. After the summer, the pace of construction in the airport’s new district was staggering; commercial centres sprang up overnight, and an industrial zone is reportedly under development. We cannot know how much idle woodland will remain for the Summer Solstice mushrooms to grow in 2025, or how many will still wish to make a living from picking them. It is foreseeable that with the construction of the airport district, suburban industrial zones, and commercial centres, the local economic structure will gradually shift, and with it, the lifestyles of the Yao, the Hakka, and the indigenous residents.
For this year’s picking season, Qiaoyun has promised to take us along once more to her secret mushroom-picking spot.
A single Summer Solstice mushroom links the livelihoods of the local people and is entwined with the new era of Guoshanyao migration. No one can control the movement of a Summer Solstice mushroom, for the termites have a will of their own. Like the Guoshanyao, the migration of termites is full of wisdom and courage, seeking new paths through collective effort. In this process, a new species brings new food, and with it, new livelihoods and new ways of living.
The Summer Solstice mushrooms, the termites, and the Guoshanyao people practise a form of cross-species emotional interaction, nurturing new lives—both human and non-human—equally fragile and interdependent, embracing a more diverse environment and mode of survival through fluidity. This is the life lesson that Qiaoyun and her fellow Guoshanyao, along with the Summer Solstice mushrooms and the termites, have offered us.
After several rounds of interviews by six judges, 18 creative projects were ultimately selected for support under the Foodthink Lianhe Creative Project, four of which have already been published:
‹Cleaner Ah Mei Wants a Proper Meal | The Worker’s Table›
‹In Malaysia, Chinese Merchants Only Want Grade-A Durians›
‹”Fake Meat” Displaces Real Meat: Herders, Tables, and the Amazon›
Editor: Xu Youyou