I.Branches Laden with Lychees Before my dad sent me photos of lychees weighing down the branches via mobile, I had never thought about going home to help sell them. My family home is in Lufeng, Guangdong Province, where we have a lychee grove of nearly one *mu*. They’ve been grown…
Farmer Sun Wenxiang stood in his concrete courtyard to welcome us, his large, calloused feet bare. In early July, Hongya County in Meishan City, Sichuan Province, had just experienced several torrential rainstorms. It was a rare few days of downtime between farm tasks. In another fortnight, the maize in Sun…
The gardenias have begun to bloom in the valley. My flowers are finally here. June 16th, a month ago, was the anniversary of Villain’s Valley. 2025 marks the fourth year. My own little plot in front of the house provides more than enough to be self-sufficient, and in the valley…
Since early June, a video titled “From Waste Siege to Not Enough Waste to Burn: China’s Speed Leaves the West Baffled” has been spreading rapidly across the internet. The idea of simply tossing unsightly rubbish into a furnace to be burned away, while using the resulting energy for electricity, has…
Preface As part of the generation born after 1990, we rode the wave of marketisation and commodification, experiencing the dazzling, kaleidoscope world they created. Unlike our parents’ generation, who were born into farming and did almost everything by hand, we have handed over most of our lives—from the clothes we…
Foodthink Says The saga of “shortages” and skyrocketing prices in Japanese supermarkets has dragged on from last summer through to this one. Despite continuous government intervention, rice prices have refused to drop; instead, the situation has intensified, leading the media to dub it the “Reiwa Rice Riot”. Not only have…
A while ago, some people joked that McDonald’s had become like an emotionless ‘middle-aged man’—no longer brimming with childhood innocence or youthful vitality, but transformed into a lifeless canteen for corporate drudges. Yet, in truth, McDonald’s has never lacked for ‘beasts of burden’. I was surprised to find that, including…
Foodthink Says “Stories about food are the best stories we can tell.” This is what veteran BBC journalist Dan Saladino told Foodthink during an interview at the 3rd International Conference on Agricultural Biodiversity this May. Saladino specialises in reporting on food and agriculture. Over more than a decade, he has…
Foodthink Says “Six months of drought, six months of flooding.” Farmers in parts of Guangxi are experiencing unprecedented natural disasters. First came a once-in-60-year drought. From November last year to April this year, average precipitation in Guangxi was nearly 70% lower than usual—the lowest since complete meteorological records began in…
This episode of Food Talk is a casual conversation recorded at “Ji Shi”, the physical store of the Beijing Organic Farmers’ Market in Sanyuanqiao. We are joined by two old friends: Kang Li and Jin Peng. One is an Yi woman from Chuxiong, Yunnan, who funded her education through the…
