Saturday, July 26th (Sino Organic Farm Tour and Arrival in Ping Che)
Written by Kelli Zakimi
We woke up around 6:15am and packed our stuff because we were going to stay in the Ping Che workcamp for two nights while we visit other farms under VolTra contacts.
Leaving Wing Lung
We took a taxi to the train station and had breakfast at a nearby restaurant that had a Campbell's Soup theme. We had rice noodles, deep fried yao za gui, jook, and coffee that already comes with cream inside. It tasted funny to me, too creamy.
yao za jui, some deep fried bread...looks crispy, but it is hard
Jook and some kind of mochi rice with pork
The coffee came with cream
The restaurant menu
After breakfast we took the train to Sheung Shui, which is where Sino Organic Farm was located. On the way there we passed through some heavy rain. Stephanie said people in Hong Kong don't wear rain jackets, and use only umbrellas.
Donning our ponchos and opening umbrellas
The gate to the farm was flooded, which meant we had to wait for the water level to lower before the van could get to us. The tiny room had a ton of mosquitoes and the loud claps of thunder echoed loudly off the walls. After an hour the van was able to get out and we reached Sino Farm.
The gate to the farm - flooded
Originally we were supposed to harvest peanuts, but the weather was not good. Sino (pronounced sigh-no), is a Buddhist farm and is named after Sing Lung, who was known for planting the first rice and discovering Chinese herbs and medicine.
The people at Sino were really nice and when they heard we were having stomach troubles, they gave us bittermelon tea. It was basically dehydrated bittermelon in hot water, and it was surprisingly good. I learned that bittermelon is also called half-life melon because people usually like it more when they are older. We also got to try freshly harvested raw peanuts, which had a crisp, clean taste while still earthy. It was delicious! If you cook it in soup they say it is good for the blood because it is red. On the farm they mostly use the peanut crop as fertilizer, since it grows so quickly.
By then it had stopped raining, so while our lunch was prepared, Marvin and the farmer gave us a tour. They showed us a bunch of different crops they were experimenting with - among them figs, kiwis, and blackberries. They had two kinds of pumpkin, Chinese long beans, and an assortment of sweet melons that when ripe are so crisp that if you tap them too much, it might crack. When harvesting, they cut off most of the water to make the melons sweeter. They also grew wintermelon, and two types of bittermelon (green and white). The white variety is less bitter and more expensive.
The lunch at Sino was definitely one of my favorite meals on the whole trip. After lunch we helped cover some of the baby white bittermelons, and sampled some sweet white corn and yellow watermelon. Felicia had the great idea of getting the addresses of the farms we visited and sending them UH seed lab seeds as a token of our appreciation. I wonder if that would be possible?
In the afternoon we took a van to Ping Che. We discussed the housing market in Hong Kong and talked about how mainland Chinese buy all the houses and drive the prices up, even if the houses are located in underdeveloped areas. After we got dropped off, we walked to the workcamp site and saw all of the volunteers there. I was amazed by all the longan trees too!
We learned that the government wants to develop Ping Che to create a tourist industry, which would end up changing the area and the culture. They bring in volunteers to the workcamp to bring a new purpose to Ping Che in the form of culture, arts, and education. The deal with the government was that Ping Che has 10 years to transform the area and bring a new value to it or else they will start construction.
Dinner was served around 7:00pm, and there was a lot of food. We met volunteers from Korea, Thailand, Taiwan, China, Spain, and Hong Kong. We were also introduced to Vivian and KK, who were camp leaders for the Ping Che workcamp.
For the whole workcamp of 20ish or so people, there were two showers and one toilet area. It seemed like there was a showering schedule, but it wasn't followed exactly, so showering was a bit difficult for us. I feel that the facilities were definitely not enough for all of the volunteers that stay here. It actually made me appreciate Wing Lung, and the smaller scale of it. Bird organized a small group discussion, and we were able to communicate our concerns and general well-being to him. I appreciated that he did that. Bird talked about his first workcamp experience in Mongolia at the age of 24, and how it inspired him to get involved with programs like this. It unites different groups of people for a common purpose, which is the basic idea of a workcamp. The 10-day journey that we were on was a combination of workcamp and education, with the latter being the focus. We also had group discussions on what things we thought went well and what could be improved.
I was also very grateful for the air-conditioned room that we all slept in. It really is the little things that make a big difference.
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