In Memory of a Friend to Us All

I cannot do full justice to Guan Qi’s many qualities in these pages, but I hope they might inspire us to work and enjoy life as he did, particularly in how he treated his friends and colleagues. And if, in these rather challenging times, these words can offer even a measure of optimism and the impetus to act, I believe that would be a reflection of the hope Guan Qi himself saw in peasant seeds.

I have known Guan Qi for well over ten years, but our first proper interaction came in 2016, when we travelled with a large group on a trip that lasted more than ten days. Amidst the crowd, he was remarkably unassuming, spoke sparingly, and hardly drew attention to himself. My only distinct recollection was that he was constantly taking meticulous notes, and that his English—both written and spoken—was excellent. We kept crossing paths at different conferences, and my impression hardly shifted; I mistakenly took him to be a diligent but rather reserved, even quietly dull, individual.

It was only as we gradually grew closer that I came to know the real Guan Qi. I suppose the true moment of connection and trust came when we discovered we shared a deep love of food, and an equal aversion to insincerity. When it came to voicing our frustrations, we both had a penchant for a sharp tongue. One year, shortly before the Mid-Autumn Festival, we found ourselves on business in Nanning and decided to spend the holiday together. He led us on a culinary tour of the city, and I can still picture him striding ahead to flag down taxis.

In recent years, whenever we found ourselves in the same city, we would invariably meet for a meal. These gatherings were as much about discovering new places to eat as they were about swapping fresh insights and amusing stories. Whenever I travelled for work, I would ask him for food recommendations, and he would promptly fire off a string of links. Though not every suggestion proved infallible, the sheer speed with which he produced them spoke to a deep well of accumulated knowledge.

His erudition—spanning not only serious academic subjects but also a wide array of both mainstream and obscure trivia—combined with his wit and impeccable taste across the board, cemented our friendship in both professional and personal spheres. Yet there are two qualities that I admire above all others.

Professionally, he has consistently worked to broaden the scope of the Seed Network’s activities. He proactively reached out to botanical gardens, artists, independent publishers, podcasters, and the hospitality sector—communities that traditionally lay outside an NGO’s purview—and invited them to join farmers in the stewardship of heritage seeds. In doing so, he introduced the concept of the ‘peasant seed system’ to fresh audiences, forging numerous new avenues for our work. When we met in Beijing shortly before the Spring Festival, he quietly announced a new initiative already under way, leaving us both thrilled and full of anticipation.

As a fellow practitioner, I know only too well how mentally and emotionally taxing it is to nurture such a cross-sector, informal network. Moreover, his care and support for his collaborators frequently extended far beyond the remit of the work itself. This brings me to the second quality I admire most: his unwavering willingness to invest his time and emotional energy in supporting and standing by those he held in high esteem, regardless of whether it was a professional or private matter. This generosity also granted him remarkably broad and reliable information channels, leading us to joke that he was the ‘Peasant Gossip’ hub. Yet for all his sharp tongue, he treated his friends with profound respect and would never utter a word to diminish them.

Within our sector, the first is a rare capability; in wider society, the second is an even more exceptional quality of character.

Over the past month, reading and listening to the stories others have shared about Guan Qi has reinforced a single, powerful thought: he truly lived his life as a seed would—one that bears public value.

Reading through the many tributes to Guan Qi, a good number of them focusing on the years after 2020, I found myself wondering: to what extent does the Guan Qi I knew match up with these vivid, recent recollections?

Shortly after Foodthink was founded in 2017, we published a piece on crop breeding written by him. He was among the very first contributors to the site. I still remember the thrill of editing his manuscript: the logic was clear, the structure elegant and unhurried, and the information so dense it practically overflowed. It was a professional piece that nevertheless respected the general reader, free of the opaque, exclusionary tone often found in academic circles. It had a distinct voice but carried no ego—precisely that kind of quiet joy only a seasoned editor knows when they land a truly brilliant submission.

Driven by curiosity, I quietly looked into his background. I discovered he had dedicated himself to rural development at an early stage, and that he was a postgraduate in economics at Renmin University. At the time, I rather snobishly thought to myself: here was a young man outside the state system, with such promising prospects ahead of him, yet he plunged headfirst into the mud to tackle rural issues that offered little financial reward. Wasn’t that a bit of a waste? In hindsight, that was actually the moment I first caught the spark of Guan Qi’s idealism.

In 2018, I attended an event run by the Farmer Seed Network, where I met Guan Qi in person for the first time at a workshop. He spent the entire session busy on the organising side, yet remained remarkably low-key, gladly handing over all the spotlight and key moments to the farmers he was working with. The Guan Qi of that era, both online and offline, struck me as a man of action rather than words—someone with real substance, yet comparatively quiet.

Life paths tend to cross and then drift apart. After I eventually left Foodthink, our professional correspondence dwindled. On the rare occasions I needed to ask his advice while writing, mindful of my impression of his reserved nature, I would always approach him with careful politeness. When I needed longer-term guidance, his schedule was packed with work across the country, leaving him with precious little time. I had to expend considerable effort just to “pin him down”, finding every available angle to gently “extract” his invaluable advice. Though he was younger than me, he remained, quite literally, “Teacher Guan Qi” in my eyes.

In 2023, I travelled to Indonesia for work, attending an event organised by my employer at the time. There, I happened to cross paths with Third World Network (TWN), a Malaysian organisation dedicated to seed conservation. Having by then returned to my original field of public health, I rarely saw my different areas of interest intersect, so encountering them in that setting brought a pleasant sense of crossing circles. During some informal chats after the sessions, I learned they were also long-standing friends of the Farmer Seed Network here in China. I promptly mentioned Teacher Song Yiqing and Guan Qi by name, and was, of course, warmly received. I messaged Guan Qi on WeChat straight away, which seemed to trigger his floodgates; I was promptly deluged with messages. He sent through various TWN organisational profiles, information pages, and project briefs, and even took the time to map out their collaboration network within China. I offered to bring back a few of the on-site brochures for him, to which he simply replied: “I’ve already got everything you sent.”

Ah, in an instant, Guan Qi no longer seemed like that rather reserved man from before.

Then came 2024. I had quit my job that year and, much like a middle-aged man chasing his youth, I found myself wandering around Hangzhou with younger friends, where I ran into Guan Qi again. He was based in Suzhou for work at the time. Stripped of any professional context, I felt at ease enough to jokingly call him “Boss Guan”, with a touch of gentle teasing. Over those few days, “Boss Guan” was in his element, acting as our guide to all the culinary delights of the Jiangnan region. As I listened, I realised that his favourite foods still carried a distinctly Northern soul—more precisely, the palate of his home province of Shandong: an affection for various stuffed pastries, hearty cuts of meat, noodles, and rich, robust sauces. It was also a fascinating reminder that the so-called recipes of the Jiangnan water towns actually preserve a great deal of that Northern flavour, carved by centuries of migration and the southward shift of China’s political heart. He spoke with genuine passion about craft beer, particularly lagers, and led us on a tour of Hangzhou’s remaining craft beer bars, punctuating the evenings with street skewers and Wenzhou fish balls. I was utterly struck: so this was Guan Qi, a true connoisseur of life, or as one friend put it, a thoroughly “refined boy”. I never imagined those scenes would become my final memories of Teacher Guan Qi.

As I pieced these fragments of memory together, I became aware of how Guan Qi’s image had shifted in my mind. It is true: from the reserved, serious, relentlessly busy Teacher Guan Qi who was nearly impossible to pin down, to the later “Boss Guan” who could speak at length about his work and revelled in a refined, multifaceted personal life, I truly believe he had stepped into an entirely new chapter, ready to make his mark in the years ahead. I never imagined that would be the exact moment he was suddenly taken from us. He remains frozen in time at the peak of his vitality, leaving a profound sense of loss for all of us left behind, and for the entire seed conservation community. If someone like me, who only ever shared a passing acquaintance with him, has so much to say, then I can only imagine the weight of unspoken grief lodged in the hearts of his parents, his lifelong friends, his colleagues, and those closest to him. The sorrow must be unbearable.

I write this simply to honour Guan Qi’s memory, and to hope that he continues to watch over us from above. The next time I travel back to the Jiangnan region, I will carry those final memories and images with me.

I first met Guan Qi on 1 August 2019, at a team-building meeting hosted by Foodthink and the Farmer Seed Network. He was still wearing glasses at the time. Having caught a cold, I did not join the main table that day; instead, I asked to sit on a sofa in the corner and listen in. Although I had already been with the organisation for a year, I still felt as though I had accidentally wandered into the food-and-farming sector, weighed down by self-doubt and internal friction. Later, once we became friends, Guan Qi would often remind me, “You need to learn to value yourself.”

We did gradually grow closer. In 2020, a magazine republished the two-part article “New Pathways for Seed Conservation” that Guan Qi had originally posted on Foodthink. I managed the coordination, which led to regular one-to-one WeChat exchanges with him. Publication during the pandemic was fraught with difficulties, stretching the project timeline and, in turn, deepening our conversations. In December 2021, the Farmer Seed Network organised a training workshop at a farm on the outskirts of Chengdu. When a fellow practitioner asked me how to draft a project proposal, I casually tossed the question to Guan Qi as he passed by. He actually stopped and walked us through how to structure a proposal. Later, I left my full-time position at Foodthink to conduct independent fieldwork in southeastern Guizhou. I secured funding by applying the proposal framework he had taught me. Whenever questions arose in the field, he always had an answer; he never missed a call. If a puzzling story or bit of gossip came up, he’d raise an eyebrow, fill in the missing background and character details, and chuckle at the passage of time—always willing to listen and share, but never quick to pass judgement.

By April 2022, he had relocated to Suzhou. During the early stages of establishing the eastern regional network, he created a small group chat called the “Jiangnan Reading Club”. The first book we undertook together was The Valiant General Returns Home. It was a chaotic spring. We actually only gathered online once to read through the text; more often, our conversations drifted to food and the rhythms of daily life. Though our movements were heavily restricted and we were scattered across different places, our friendship drew closer. Now, before we have even finished the book, this remarkable individual has returned to Shandong and passed away. The food-and-farming sector and the seed conservation movement have lost a steadfast champion.

Over the past few years, Guan Qi’s professional and personal life centred on the eastern region. Under his steady support, the eastern network grew increasingly cohesive and vibrant. Beyond his public initiatives and calls to action in a professional capacity, he was equally indispensable behind the scenes—making introductions, travelling to bridge gaps, generously hosting gatherings, and eagerly attending every invitation. As he had hoped, the network gradually blossomed into a decentralised, multi-nodal community, and even someone like me, working independently, was warmly welcomed. His sudden passing has left a profound void in this network. Yet his character and warmth have sparked new threads in the resulting fractures, drawing together people and initiatives that had never previously crossed paths. Beyond the east, Guan Qi nurtured many other networks, and grief echoes through them all. He was truly one of a kind, and mourning him feels just as profound and precious. Because of Guan Qi, no one ever had to feel alone.

As a colleague, he welcomed me; as a friend, he caught me time and again. Over the years, he has witnessed and actively supported my growth. Yet it seems I never properly thanked him.

I met Teacher Guan five years ago. I was working on an article about farmers conserving heritage seeds. The previous year, the General Office of the State Council had issued guidelines urging stronger protection and utilisation of agricultural genetic resources. Everyone knows how vital seeds are. They are not merely a question of national food security; they are the bedrock of humanity’s agricultural civilisation. Yet what is truly the most effective way to conserve them? As I gathered material for the piece, I was struck by the sharp divide between two prevailing approaches. One dictates that conservation is a government responsibility—establishing seed gene banks—while seed development should be left to the corporate sector, relying on hybridisation, genetic modification, and similar technologies. The other advocates for empowering farmers to conserve heritage seeds, ensuring in-situ preservation and local revitalisation. They may appear complementary, a neat two-pronged strategy, but in reality, the friction between them is fraught with unspoken complexities.

At the time, the central government had just approved the Action Plan for Revitalising the Seed Industry, which stressed the need to secure self-reliance and domestic control over seed supplies. I asked a leading expert whether this meant a new dawn for heritage seed conservation was approaching. He chuckled, struck by my naivety, and explained that the policy was simply a signal to bolster the seed industry. To call it a springtime for heritage seeds, he noted, would be to flatter oneself.

Another key interviewee was Teacher Guan, a representative of the heritage seed community. Editor J had helped me make the connection. Teacher Guan patiently fielded my endless beginner questions on the subject. In hindsight, answering such surface-level queries must have felt like a drain on his time. Throughout our correspondence, he never wasted a single word, nor did he use any of the usual conversational fillers—no “haha”, no “sure thing”, and certainly no emoji stickers. It was as though responding to me was an unavoidable obligation, albeit one he took seriously. Yet he answered every question I raised and shared relevant reading materials. When I expressed interest in speaking with local farmers, he arranged the introductions. Occasionally, he would go a day or two without replying. Editor J would sigh and say, “That’s just Guan Qi.”

When I joined Foodthink, I encountered a completely different side of Guan Qi. From colleagues who knew him well, I heard countless amusing anecdotes about him—how he naturally took on the role of class study representative, his deep affection for his hometown, and through their stories, I caught a glimpse of his genuine passion for agricultural issues and his deep care for the farming community. We certainly didn’t treat him as an outsider, and we were never shy about leaning on him to get work done. Yet I never found an opportunity to work directly alongside him, so we simply maintained a polite, somewhat distant professional relationship. That was until one day, fresh from a visit to the Xiangtangshan Grottoes, he bumped into me. His sharp eyes lit up, and he playfully teased, “The food in Handan is absolutely dreadful!”

In that instant, I felt his genuine warmth and realised I had finally found my way into his circle, after all those years of knowing him. I never imagined it would be our last meeting.

Even as I write these words, a sense of unreality persists. Teacher Guan is truly gone. Life goes on. Days blur into one another in a flurry of activity, and there are moments when I forget he is no longer here. Or rather, my sense of the world seems permanently anchored in the time when he was still with us. When I find myself with a vague memory and feel the urge to check our WeChat history for confirmation, I always stop myself. I am not ready to face the fact that no one will ever reply on the other side. So I can only rely on the impressions in my mind and commit these memories to paper. As for whether every detail is perfectly accurate, I rather hope he might step in and correct me one more time.

One remark Teacher Guan made that has stayed with me concerns someone I never met. It began this way: we were soaking in the hot springs in Mile, and he asked me about my early days delivering food. I told him straight. He said it reminded him of a friend who had long campaigned for workers’ rights. A Tsinghua graduate, he’d run into him in Beijing a few years prior and found out he was working as a security guard. “When I was leaving, I told him to take care,” Guan said, “because I was a little worried about his state of mind.” His tone carried a wry, slightly teasing edge, yet I was deeply warmed by his words. He possessed a rare capacity for empathy that made you instinctively want to trust him. He was concerned for an idealist, or rather, for the plight of those caught between their ideals and the demands of everyday survival. I feel that for anyone living in this day and age, such understanding and kindness are rare gifts. Hearing him speak like that, I let myself sink a little deeper into the hot spring, soaking in the warmth.

And yet he himself was an idealist, just one of a more optimistic and open-minded stripe. He once mentioned how, in his youth, he had gone undercover at a factory processing soda bottles to investigate working conditions, only to resign not long after. Squinting with a smile, he said, “It wasn’t anything else, really. I just got better and more efficient at the job, and since I knew English, the boss wanted to promote me to team leader. I thought to myself, this is definitely where I need to draw the line.” That day, he spent hours recounting his early experiences in the tea room, and I found myself laughing out loud throughout. By the time we left, the rain was pouring down, and we parted in a hurry.

We met again just two or three months later when he came back to Beijing. At the time, I figured that with someone who travels as much as Teacher Guan, there would be plenty of opportunities to catch up down the line. I gave him a copy of *Cultural Studies 1988*. It wasn’t merely to return the favour for a birthday gift from the previous year—a book on agricultural capitalism—but because he always remembered my fondness for the British New Left and cultural studies. I’m not one to eagerly push my favourite things onto others, worrying I might be imposing, unless I’ve already built a deep sense of trust. Teacher Guan always put me at ease, so I gave him the book without a second thought, complete with all my marginal notes. It was the last time we would ever meet.

I once accompanied Teacher Guan on a stretch of the road to protect heritage seeds, through Shitou City and Youmi Village in Lijiang, and on to Lugu Lake. But that was merely a small chapter in his life’s journey. His life was so vast. He travelled many paths and cared deeply about the big picture, yet he could always hold countless individual lives and specific stories in his heart. I am truly fortunate to have been one of them. Losing you leaves me profoundly sad. I often think that if I had more time to learn from a mentor and friend like you, my life might have been even better. But I will carry this regret with me, and let it drive me forward toward that better version of myself.

We always called him “Teacher Guan”. He didn’t have the surname Guan, nor was he a teacher by profession. People called him this because of his vast knowledge and his ability to “keep up with whatever you threw at him”. Whether it was academia, the entertainment industry, or serious matters concerning seeds and agriculture, if you asked him, he’d send you a link, an article, or a paper. He never went around lecturing people, but whenever you had a question, he’d answer it with genuine care.

Teacher Guan was calm and a keen conversationalist. I’ve never met anyone so even-tempered. Once you got to know him, you’d realise he was a real treasure. Not only was he deeply knowledgeable in his field, but he also had a refined taste for food. Everyone loved spending time with him, whether at work or in life. I still remember our meetings; as soon as they ended, following him would always lead us straight to a brilliant restaurant.

To me, he was a humble, inclusive man with a big heart. When I first joined Foodthink, I knew nothing about agriculture or seeds. Every time I asked him a question, he answered patiently, never showing irritation or making me feel foolish for not knowing. Looking back, many of those questions were rather naive. But it was his patience, kindness, and generosity of spirit that made me feel welcome in this industry—that newcomers are accepted, given room to learn and adapt, and can gradually find their footing.

Teacher Guan cared deeply about smallholder farmers and the preservation of old seed varieties, yet he rarely talked about it. Instead, it was evident in his work.

He understood both policy and local development. He visited ethnic minority villages and rural communities across the country, explaining to farmers the importance of old seeds and teaching them how to save their own seed. At the same time, he was raising public and consumer awareness of old varieties, championing the social value of seed diversity. He organised public events in different regions and promoted the heritage varieties grown by farmers in our partner areas at local markets, always carrying Foodthink’s promotional leaflets.

Teacher Guan’s work bridged the land, academia, and policy, while steadily expanding the market for heritage varieties. His practice showed me how grassroots organisations can pursue their own work, live by their principles, and make a genuine impact in society. He was grounded, tackling real problems—which, I suppose, is exactly why grassroots organisations exist.

It also helped me slowly understand that much of this work has to be done step by step. Each step may seem small, but every one of them matters.

Now we have lost Teacher Guan—a seed expert, an outstanding professional, and, on a personal level, a wonderful friend who could enjoy good food, drink, and company.

Teacher Guan, we will always miss you!

There are probably very few people in the world better suited to being a friend than Guan Qi. Sadly, I never got to properly begin our friendship before it ended.

Every encounter I’ve had with Teacher Guan has involved alcohol. We’ve all witnessed Guan Qi’s art of beer tasting. His material lifestyle is simple; he can travel for work for two weeks with just a light backpack, but over the years he has undoubtedly contributed significantly to the craft beer industry through his purchases. Outside a hotel in Aohan Banner, a few of us gathered for a late-night feast we were eager to devour, nearly flipping the table in the process. Yet Guan Qi seemed to exist in his own quiet bubble. He bought two 4-litre cans of craft beer from the corner shop, then ordered chicken gizzards, fried gluten, lamb skewers, and toasted buns from a barbecue stall. Whether at a table for three or twenty-three, Guan Qi maintained the same calm demeanour, drinking his beer at a perfectly steady pace, like a flawlessly calibrated beer engine. He’d occasionally drop a juicy piece of gossip for us to savour.

Aside from beer and coffee, reading critical theory was Teacher Guan’s other great fuel. The more he knew, the less he felt the need to speak. When I get drunk, I tend to ramble on about my shallow academic knowledge, embarrassed even by my own words. Guan Qi was nothing like that. Despite reading extensively, he never opened his mouth with “I think…”, but rather “I recommend…”. What a rare quality! It’s no wonder Guan Qi was so beloved; he was always genuinely trying to help. I often turned to Teacher Guan for help, unsure how to repay him, telling myself there would be plenty of time later and not worrying too much. I never imagined I’d be left without the chance to repay it.

I have always considered myself a staunch materialist, but Guan Qi’s passing has made me believe in another world. I hope he has gone to a better place.

Though I’ve only met Teacher Guan twice, I still feel compelled to pen a few words.

Both occasions were centred around a meal.

That first dinner was also our inaugural meal with Foodthink, enjoyed at a Wenzhou open-air restaurant. I can still faintly picture him putting on a table-side drinking performance, keeping time with his elbow or some other form of physical choreography. What a delightful fellow.

When we added each other on WeChat afterwards, his very first message was: “Thought you hadn’t split the bill yet…”

Take a close look here: a refreshingly unpretentious middle-aged man who uses Jennie stickers.

The second meal in Bangkok was also the last.

Teacher Guan was in the mountains at the time, observing a spiritual retreat. It was a rare holiday for him to venture down. Seeing him from a distance at the station, he truly carried the quiet air of a hermit descending from the peaks.

We picked up some beer from a nearby 7-Eleven, found a small eatery, and ordered a simple bowl of pork congee.

The beer was likely just average. We added a pack of pork skin to accompany it, though the pork skin itself wasn’t particularly good.

No matter how luxurious we might have wanted it, a pack of pork skin was all we could add.

The core of this practice was “seeing oneself”. By chance, his seat was right beside a large mirror—turn his head, and he could see himself instantly. At the time, I thought it wonderfully convenient: why trek to the mountains to cultivate when turning your head is practice enough? In hindsight, I realise perhaps wherever he sat, that very spot became his place of practice.

I invited him to head to King Power the next day to spot handsome men. He looked distinctly hesitant, striking the pose of an older commuter peering at his phone. Yet his earnest reluctance, coupled with his fundamentally good nature, made me believe for a fleeting moment that he might actually come along.

After dinner, we walked towards the hotel. Bangkok’s streets were remarkably clean. I can’t quite recall what we talked about. Perhaps that rain was forecast for the next day, or which shopping centre we’d visit to pick up souvenirs all in one go, or maybe we were playfully critiquing the Thais for leaning rather too heavily into BL shipping…

After all, it was just an ordinary day. I still had many more meals just like this one to share with him.

I only remember the pleasant weather, feeling thoroughly satisfied, and having just met someone truly fascinating. Looking back, it remains one of those rare moments of ease and relaxation. It was a stroke of luck to have met Teacher Guan.

That sense of comfort is exactly how he always made me feel.

At ease, like the wind.

When will you return?

Date

28 April 2026

Venue

Liangzhu, Hangzhou, Zhejiang

You are warmly invited to join us for a gathering of remembrance

Together with us,

honour the memory of this cherished friend,

and see our dear Guan Qi off on his final journey.

Please complete the form to register for the memorial.