Before flowing east into the urban areas of Beijing, the Yongding River forms several U-shaped bends following the mountain terrain; Longjiazhuang and Shuiyuzui villages are situated on opposite banks of the river. A road bridge connects the two villages. Between 29 July and 2 August, extreme rainfall across the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei…
Northwest China is becoming warmer and wetter, but is this a blessing or a curse for local agriculture? Many people’s first instinct is that becoming ‘wetter’ is a positive development for the arid inland Northwest—after all, more water should mean more crops can be grown. However, the impact of climate…
In Russian, summer is also known as the ‘dacha season’. Maxim Gorky wrote a short play, translated into Chinese as *The Summer Guest*, but originally titled *Dachniki* in Russian—which more literally translates to ‘the dacha people’. In 1995, the same story was adapted into a film titled *Summer People*. The…
Foodthink says In 1924, Fei Dasheng and the teachers and students of the Jiangsu Provincial Girls’ Sericulture School arrived at Kaixiangong Village in Wujiang County and established the Silk Improvement Society, which has now existed for nearly a century. Later, the experiences of this cooperative were documented by Fei Dasheng’s…
A Note from Foodthink 11 November 2021, during the Fengnian Festival in Guangzhou, Foodthink interviewed two musicians from the band Wayna, Banong and Shibashi. This conversation became the first episode of the “Food Talk” podcast. Beyond this, during the early stages of “Food Talk”, Banong generously composed the intro and…
“Whenever I arrive in a foreign land, the first thing I do is ask the locals where the market is.” In June this year, mirroring the experiences of food writer Han Liangyi in *Wandering Through the World’s Markets*, I embarked on a journey of markets in Barcelona, Spain. Of the…
Recently, the World Health Organization’s assessment suggesting that aspartame may be carcinogenic has sparked widespread debate, bringing the use of sugar substitutes in processed foods back into the spotlight. In this episode, Food Talk has invited Lulu, a PhD candidate in the Department of Cardiovascular Medicine at Fuwai Hospital, Peking…
Recently, the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, still reeling from the “heaviest rainfall in 60 years”, has begun to experience high temperatures following the start of autumn. This summer has truly been a case of “deep waters and scorching fires”, once again demonstrating the severity of extreme weather events to the public. While…
Key Takeaways The profitability of the practice has given rise to ‘professional counterfeit hunting’. After the Food Safety Law introduced a punitive damages system, increasing compensation from three-fold to ten-fold, a surge of professional hunters entered the food sector, where there was previously little to be gained. While this has…
Key Takeaways Food safety issues can arise at any stage of the chain. If regulation in other areas fails to keep pace, relying solely on heavy fines for individual vendors is merely treating the symptoms rather than the cause and cannot solve the root problem of food safety. For a…
