1 Women’s Lives At sixty, looking back on her thirties, a woman finds it so remote, as though another lifetime has passed. In the 1990s, in my thirties, the air was filled with all manner of apocalyptic fables. Whether in novels or films, the…
◉ There are plenty of group photos featuring Guan Qi, yet very few portraits of him alone. In those group shots, he always lingered at the back or to the side, quiet and wearing a gentle smile. This picture was taken in December 2024 at Qiandao Lake in Hangzhou,…
Foodthink says In January this year, a Beijing resident ordered fresh lily bulbs from Hema but received toxic daffodil bulbs instead, leading to their 71-year-old mother and 12-year-old son being hospitalised after eating them. Hema attributed the error to a sorter who, during the picking process, accidentally placed daffodil…
With the arrival of Grain Rain, the showers nourish the myriad crops, and the fields enter their most busy and vibrant season of the year. Following two weeks of quiet, Foodthink embarks on a fresh journey at this solar term. Borrowing the blessing of a good rain, we sow…
Friends are divided on whether Guan Qi was more of an introvert or an extrovert. Several of us asked him directly and received different answers each time. After he passed away, we gathered and realised it was a mystery that could never be definitively resolved. Whenever we think back to…
On 4 April last year, Foodthink published a “compilation of deleted articles”. Since then, whenever an article is removed, colleagues have relied on a wry internal joke for solace: “We already have another entry for next year’s 404 compilation.” But the articles 404’d over these two years are not entirely…
Having spent too long away from the little village where every household practised fermentation, and drifting for far too long through a city life full of uncertainty, I lost a piece of my own vitality. It is only recently that I came to realise this. For many years, fermentation was…
A Note from Foodthink Why would a girl from the north, who had never even seen sugarcane, head south to grow it? Why would a short-video vlogger be mocked by farmers? Why would a PhD candidate call herself a primary school student? Why would a tea research specialist enjoy chatting…
Weeds are not the other; weeds are you and me. — Michael Pollan, *Weeds, Roses, and Groundhogs: How the Garden Educated Me* Over the past year, I have travelled with my colleagues from Foodthink to more than ten ecological farms across the country, from the coastal cities of the Yangtze…
We often believe that as long as our produce is certified, thoroughly washed, home-cooked, and fresh, it will be healthy and natural. We scrutinise the origin of our meat and vegetables and pore over the ingredient lists of our condiments; surely nothing has been overlooked? Yet, the cautious urban consumer…