Vignettes of the World
The Maritime Museum is perhaps the only private museum in Hong Kong, established and maintained with the support by various prominent persons and companies, such as the Wah Kwong shipping company and Swire. Its location at Central Pier No. 8 is a perfect alignment with …
Lijiang River (not to be confused with the Lijiang of Yunnan) is the subsidiary of the Pearl River system in the west. It is the upper reaches to the Guijiang River. From its origin in Xingan County’s high mountain of Mao’er Shan in the northeast, …
In Chinese, lingzhi, the Ganoderma Lucidum is a type of mushroom that is grown on rotten wood. Also known as reishi in Japan, it is a medicinal herb widely used in the traditional medicine of Asia. In China, it is much sought-after and it is very expensive.
On our way to Yangshuo, our driver Xiaohuang stopped by a lingzhi garden that also serves cuisine with this herb. I was pleasantly surprised: the food was special and the learning was very interesting.
According to traditional Chinese medicine, lingzhi has the chief effects of strengthening the body, especially in raising the metabolic rate, lifting the energy level and reducing fatigue. Containing polysaccharides and triterpene, lingzhi is meant to activate the immune system in the body, as well as providing a rich source of antioxidants.
As a medicinal herb featured in Li Shizhen’s Compendium of Materia Medica, lingzhi has been used in traditional Chinese medicine for 2,000 years.
At the farm, the staff introduced to us to how lingzhi is grown. Lingzhi was very expensive in the older times because they were found in the wild. As such, it was featured in imperial cuisine as a privilege of China’s emperors and nobility in the ancient time.
Photos above: the growth of lingzhi
It was only in the past 4 to 5 decades that lingzhi is cultivated and grown in farms. According to what I saw at the farm, it did not occur to me that it was a particularly “difficult” crop to grow — though certainly this farm has developed some very specialized techniques for growing lingzhi.
Wild lingzhi grows upon rotten wood. The mushroom is especially rare because of the conditions required to spur its growth. At the lingzhi garden, I learned how farmers recreated these natural conditions. In this garden, the growers used two types of wood, the chinquapin or the maple. They are cut into 50 cm logs first. The logs are then sealed in bags and steamed for 24 hours. This step aims to remove the conditions that enable the growth of other kinds of mushrooms.
Then the logs are dressed in new bags with the seeds of the lingzhi planted. The temperature and other critical conditions for lingzhi to grow was heavily monitored in the garden. At the time of our visit, it was the very tail end of the season already. Most of the lingzhi was harvested already. There was just one, just one, piece there for demonstration purposes. We did manage to see lingzhi in a recreated natural environment, amongst the lain around wood logs in the garden.
The staff told us that the most important yield of a lingzhi mushroom are actually its seeds. They are powdery and that is the most valuable product out of a harvest. Only mature lingzhi disseminates seeds, as seen in the powdery layer on the surface of its cap. In fact, right when the lingzhi spews seed, that is the most appropriate time to harvest the crop to ensure the reaping of the greatest medicinal qualities.
We had a wonderful time chatting with the staff there about lingzhi. They led us to other parts of the garden, and the air was filled with the fragrance of blooming osmanthus. When Xiaohuang told us we were having another hotpot lunch, I was not overly excited, but the whole experience turned out to be so surprisingly educational and pleasant.
Lunch was a meal themed in lingzhi. We were first served lingzhi tea. I thought it had an interesting woody, earthy flavor. The main course was chicken hotpot cooked in a lingzhi infused broth. It was very flavorful as well. We ordered the garden vegetables to go into our hotpot, and even the garden vegetables were unique. We had never had such vegetables before as Cantonese.
I had never had lingzhi in my life. I was always under the impression that it is a highly priced dry herb that I could not afford. Yet I would not say that the meal we had would give us all the purported effects of Lingzhi. We were certainly not served with the powdery seeds, which brings forth the greatest potency of lingzhi’s medicinal qualities. But this meal is a proper “medicinal cuisine (yaoshan),” which is very popular in Beijing.
The name of the lingzhi farm is Hongfeng Yuanlin (宏峰园林Hongfeng Garden). The address is Guangcheng Xian, Yangshuo County, Guilin Municipality, Zhuang Minority Autonomous Region, Guangxin Province (广西壮族自治区桂林市阳朔县广成线) accessible by private car only. It is quite a worthy stop on the way to Yangshuo from Guilin City. The restaurant is part of the enterprise to promote lingzhi as a health supplement.
Cosmopolitian, Which lingzhi seeds are the best? (Chin).
The Wikipedia on Ganoderma Lucidum.
Biomedschool.com, What is lingzhi? (Chin).
Guilin prides in itself as “the scenery that tops the world,” as the Chinese saying goes. The city offers a few options for tourists that want to enjoy an up-close encounter with Guilin’s unique natural scenery. Situated between the Lijiang River on the east and …
A joint venture of the former Happy Bakery and Shun King Restaurant, Happy Café brought together the best of Hong Kong’s culinary traditions in cha chaan teng meals. Being two in one, Happy Café has doubled down on the idea that 1+1 equals more than …
The Mountains are the back of a dragon. The fields are the staircase amidst clouds.
Longji, the scenic area that features enormous acreages of terraced rice fields, was the most anticipated part of the trip to Guilin for me. The best-known sceneries of Guilin are the karst peak-hugging, waterfront views at different sections of the Li River. Longji’s terraced rice fields present a nice departure from the core selections of Guilin tourism. But no, it is not, in any way, a path less traveled. Longji is also a hot touristy spot during the high season for traveling in Guilin.
The above-quoted saying is the locals’ expression of awe at the beautiful scenery in Longji. Having visited the Jinkeng Terraced Fields, I must say that the scenery does live up to its good repute.
It is said that the terraced rice fields of Longji have had 2,300 years of history. Since the Qin dynasty, the villagers have broken the grounds on the mountain slopes to till rice in these terraced fields. The villagers significantly broadened the scale of terraced rice farming during the Tang and Song dynasties. By the Ming and Qing dynasties, the terraced fields of this area have achieved the scale that we see today.
Our guide Xiaohuang emphasized to me that this wonderful view of the villagers’ farming practice was the result of generations of work, and the historical character of these fields is apparent to any observer.
There are a few large areas of terraced rice fields in Longji for tourists. The Jinkeng Terraced Fields is the largest one, and naturally we went to that one. From the foot of the mountain, we took a cable car for about 15-20 minutes to see the wide aerial views of the fields. Do note that you should began taking photographs on the cable car, as it presents some pretty exciting views already.
As to the other terraced rice fields in the area, the Pingan (meaning “peace”) fields and the Guzhuangzhai fields are tended by the Zhuang ethnic minority. If given the opportunity, I would like to visit those in the future.
Jinkeng, meaning “a golden pit” in Chinese, acquired its name because of its large scale in terraced farming. In harvest times, the panicles of the rice crop spread throughout the mountainous fields. One can imagine that the scene is a sea of goldenness, manifesting the glory of abundance.
The scale of the terraces bespeaks the innovation and insight into the villagers’ difficult survival against nature and limiting circumstances. Yet they have amply surmounted the difficulty of having lost the turf wars and being relegated to the mountainous region.
Mostly situated at an altitude of 800 – 1,500 meters, the terraced rice fields are the only land available for farming for the villages. All along the rolling mountain ridges, from the foot to the top, the terraced fields stack one step further from the other along the meander of the natural contours of the slopes. The highest vertical distance between the top fields and the bottom fields is 800 meters.
Each level of the terrace is about 3-5 feet wide. Because rice is a semi-aquatic crop, the view of the terraced fields during planting season comes with beautiful reflections glimmering under natural light. The mountainous breezes gently stroke the slender stalks of the panicles. You may run into the ethnic minority villagers tending the fields in that time as well.
Sources suggest that there are 450 recorded crops that had been grown in the terraced fields of Longji, besides rice.
After getting off the cable car, we spent about an hour’s time snapping photographs of the scenery. There is a large viewing area enabling near-360 views of the fields. The viewing platform comes with a number of souvenir shops and some establishments for food. The building is well designed to meet the “ethnic minority architecture” vibe, as such it is itself photogenic.
A reminder is that tourists should not veer off course from the viewing platform area and venture out to the fields. I do believe that they are off bounds to non-villagers. You do not want to cause damage to their crops and you also do not want to run the risk of falling off the sometimes-steep contours of the terraces.
For those who would like to do sunrise or sunset photographs, consider staying at the properties available on site. There are quite a few and the rooms come with fantastic views.
Baidu.com’s Baike on The Longji Terraced Fields (Chin).
“Ah Jie, I tell you the saying that we have about the ethnic minorities of Guilin,” Xiaohuang was keen to introduce me to the territorial politics of the province, “ages ago, the different ethnicities fought for land. It is said that those who won the …
Guilin, in Chinese, means “a grove of osmanthus.” The osmanthus is, therefore, in every way representative of Guilin. From the way that osmanthus trees wave fragrance in their native habitat, to the way that its tiny yellow flowers perfume in coffee, the osmanthus stands tall …
My family wanted to visit Guilin for their biannual trip. Unlike my last trip to Guilin, which was a solo adventure in the same year, I had to plan for a group of five adults. There are two older members of the family. As such, all planning was a little more rigorous than when I went travelling alone. Hotels had to be top of the line, food had to be scrumptious in comfortable restaurants, and a chaperon was hired to take us all over different locations in Guilin for a good five days.
I enjoyed this trip for exactly this reason. Having a driver enabled me to go to a whole lot of places that I would not be able to go on my own. For many parts of China, the places of great scenery often require hiring a driver. Traveling solo and hiring a driver was not a kind of expense that I was willing to make.
| Day 1
(Guilin) |
Day 2
(Longji) |
Day 3
(Yangshuo) |
Day 4
(Yangshuo) |
Day 5
(Xingping) |
|
| Morning | Elephant Trunk Hill
Shopping and Lingzhi Farm |
Moon Hill, Tong Ethnicity Village | Xingping sightseeing boat ride (Yellow Cloth Shoal) | ||
| Afternoon | Arrive in Guilin from Guangzhou South Station | Yao Ethnicity Long Hair Village
Longji Terraced Field |
Yulong River Bamboo Raft | Silver Cave
Ruyi Mountain Cable Car |
Return to Hong Kong from Yangshuo Station |
| Evening | Liu Sanjie Impression Show | ||||
| Accommodation | Elephant Trunk Hill Hotel | Moye Sanqiu Homestay | |||
The driver offered a large 7-seater for our trip. Readers that would like to hire this reliable driver should DM me by email (quotation@chestnutwriters.com). Although we did not require his service for hotel booking, he was gracious in taking us to the best restaurants that he knows. If you so require, he will set the whole itinerary for you in Guilin, and also make bookings for the hotels that meet your expectation.
In Yangshuo, we wanted to see the Liu Sanjie Impression Show directed by famous director Zhang Yimou. It was not so easy to look up the proper ticket sales online. He got that covered for us, no hassles at all.
To be sure, December is certainly a low season for traveling in Guilin. The main reason being that the water levels are low in the winter, and a lot of the great sceneries in Guilin are waterfront sceneries. That said, there certainly is a great advantage in terms of ticketing, crowds and queues when you travel in the low season. We experienced no frustration with the crowds throughout this trip, even for the hot touristy spots.
The high season for traveling in Guilin is late spring and summer. The scenery would be notably different in different seasons when you visit the famous terraced fields of Longji. When we went, the harvest had been done, and we saw rather baren fields (there will be an entry on Longji). To be fair, the scenery wasn’t too bad even at the least interesting time of the year.
From Hong Kong, we first went to Panyu, Guangzhou on a private car. From Guangzhou to Guilin, we simply took the high speed rail. I have discussed before how the train pulls into Guangxi and the scenery changes into a series of rapidly rolling karst peaks. That was itself quite a scene. I do highly recommend taking the high speed rail to Guilin.
To book tickets for the high speed rail, be sure to watch out for the day that sale is open, which is typically 14 days prior. In certain peak times of the year, tickets can be sold out very quickly. I wanted first class tickets, but did not manage to get any of the first class high speed rail tickets even though I put in a preorder at the first available prebooking time. Good enough that we did secure the regular tickets without issue.
It came as a great disappointment for me that all the days that we spent in Yangshuo were overcast and cold. We had some pretty good days in Guilin, but Guilin city is actually not known for beautiful scenery, so to speak. The greatest beauty of Guilin is in Yangshuo and Xingping. Our driver told us that it was good enough that it did not rain heavily when we went. I will take that.
It is very difficult to know which days are good weather days for traveling to Guilin due to the advanced period of time you need to book or prebook the train tickets. Because we had a group with old people and working professionals, I was working with a tight and inflexible schedule. As such, the weather had to be an afterthought.
Considering the fact that this was the first time I organized a trip for my dear family members, all worked out quite well and I had no complaints. At the end of the day, we did not have any critical health issues during the trip and we enjoyed the company and the food. That was what really mattered.
Panyu is the haven of food in Guangzhou, which is a heaven of food itself. I took my family to Panyu because of the great food, and it certainly did not disappoint. The following is in random order and it is not a ranking. Baomaye …