If you want to know where a plant exists, talk to the native people. This was how my continued search for native kudzu took me this past week to the village named Ku Gu Qin (pronounced: "koo guh cheen"), or Wild Kudzu Valley. As the name suggests, there was plenty of kudzu to be found in this remote mountain village; however, contrary to its name, very little wild, truly wild (i.e. never cultivated before) kudzu exists there. We found Ku Gu Qin through phone calls to some people who are, have been, or have relatives still living in this village. Two of the groundskeepers at KIB were aware of this plant, kudzu, growing everywhere in their home village. To ensure that it was the same plant that we were seeking, one of the groundskeepers took us to the part of the garden where they grow plants to later be placed somewhere within KIB, much in the same way happens at my "home-base" botanical gardens the Missouri Botanical Garden. There in this section of KIB he showed us my kudzu plant, sprawling all across the ground and climbing up a couple trees. He considered it a weed, that is an unwanted plant, in this part of KIB, but I have come across two other places in KIB where kudzu is growing (and is just putting out flower buds), one just in front of the office building where my desk is.
It is not an easy journey to Ku Gu Qin. The total drive time took about 1.5 hours to reach the village. It's not that it is actually so far from KIB, but rather the roads you have to travel to get there are a bit, well, dangerous, and are made ever more dangerous by our highly experienced (and so I trust him) driver, Mr. Du, who likes to drive a little too fast on these narrow, rocky mountain "roads" leading to the village. On our way there, we stopped off to the side of a busy street to pick up, what looked like to me, a beggar. With no explanation forthcoming, I was told to just switch to the front seat. As it turned out, he was the father-in-law of the groundskeeper whose village we were going to, and who was also accompanying us (so that we didn't get lost on our own). This man had been selling his fruit in the city and, somehow - I do not know how these things develop - we were able to find him along this roadside and drive him to his home. He also was one of the people who helped us to actually locate some of the kudzu populations in Ku Gu Qin. Once we arrived in the village, we were greeted, now and then, seemingly randomly, by other village people, who also had knowledge of kudzu populations here or there up and down the mountain. I have learned that when approaching a villager, you can immediately break any initial suspicion or tension there might be, by offering a gift of a cigarette or two to the man. Being from America, where there has been an all-out war on cigarette smoking, I am still not used to how much the older men in China smoke, and I am told that the younger generation of men are forgoing this habit (the women then not to smoke, and, in fact I have yet to see such a thing). Anyway, the local people sure do know where their plants are, mainly because many of the plants here in China, both wild and cultivated, are used for medicinal purposes. While we were on our kudzu hunting expeditions, now and then our local guides would stoop down to pull some plants out of the red soil. "It's for medicine," Wei tells me. And so this is one of the problems with finding "wild" native kudzu in China. The majority of the populations we come to, we are told, have been established at one time in the past for cultivating the roots, which were used for food and medicine. However, there is another species of kudzu here, that apparently tastes better, and so the local people have mostly abandoned the cultivation of "my" kudzu.
We also ate lunch in Ku Gu Qin, which was quite an experience for me. It was the first time I have eaten a meal in a truly rural, village setting. I felt much like Anthony Bourdain on one of his adventures to find local, delicious food. Unlike many of the meals Mr. Bourdain finds, there was no strange meat or bug or other delicacy for me to - reluctantly - try. I normally do not like to eat when I am so far away from home (read: the comfort of my own bathroom), and so I tasted and ate just a little. But in the gracious Chinese spirit, my hosts, the in-laws of the groundskeeper, continued to fill my bowl with rice and pork and vegetables, until they understood that I was not going to eat as much as they wanted me to eat. Aside from the plethora of flies swimming around our heads, there was nothing unsanitary or unappetizing about the food they served me, it was just visions of stomach woes in rural China that prevented me from fully enjoying their meal. I tried everything, so I hope I did not offend these good people too much with my reluctance to eat a big meal.
This was also my first time actually seeing the natural beauty of Kunming that I had heard all about. When those I talked to found out I'd be in Kunming, the most frequent response was, "Oh wow, that is such a beautiful city and the weather is always great. It's one of my favorite places in China." Up until today, I was not as blown away by what I had seen in Kunming. The botanical gardens at KIB are truly spectacular, but aside from that, I did see any breathtaking views, until Ku Gu Qin. I have tried to capture some of the beauty of this landscape in my photos, but I just did not do the place justice. There are greatly forested mountains, with trees densely packed together on the steep slopes; there are places cleared for cultivating all kinds of crops; there are beautiful wildflowers and carnivorous plants; there are mountains behind mountains behind mountains; there's the red soil; there's the local people, kind and generous.
This was also my first time actually seeing the natural beauty of Kunming that I had heard all about. When those I talked to found out I'd be in Kunming, the most frequent response was, "Oh wow, that is such a beautiful city and the weather is always great. It's one of my favorite places in China." Up until today, I was not as blown away by what I had seen in Kunming. The botanical gardens at KIB are truly spectacular, but aside from that, I did see any breathtaking views, until Ku Gu Qin. I have tried to capture some of the beauty of this landscape in my photos, but I just did not do the place justice. There are greatly forested mountains, with trees densely packed together on the steep slopes; there are places cleared for cultivating all kinds of crops; there are beautiful wildflowers and carnivorous plants; there are mountains behind mountains behind mountains; there's the red soil; there's the local people, kind and generous.
Aside from Ku Gu Qin, we also went on a kudzu adventure that took us through the White Village and the Little River Village. On this journey, we came up a local street market, that ran on and on and on. The streets were lined with all kinds of fruit and vegetables and meats, fabrics and toys and other souvenirs. We stopped and picked up some farm-fresh grapes, bananas, and lychee. Through the market we went and finally came up some roadside kudzu patches. The majority of the populations I've seen in China are roadside or garden-side and are nowhere near the size I have seen along American roadsides. There really has only been one population, in Ku Gu Qin, that was similar in size to some of the populations I've seen in the States. The majority of populations in China are like what we saw near the White Village, spotty, low density populations that were likely planted, at one time or another, for cultivation. We stopped at one local house where there was a good bit of kudzu growing, but which was no longer being used for anything. Like all the other populations I had been to, this was was just beginning to flower, and so, with another couple of weeks to go before the flowers finally develop, this is the last place we will venture to for awhile.
Pictures:
Wild Kudzu Valley: http://www.flickr.com/photos/97422460@N08/sets/72157634195684760/
White Village: http://www.flickr.com/photos/97422460@N08/sets/72157634209606993/
Wild Kudzu Valley: http://www.flickr.com/photos/97422460@N08/sets/72157634195684760/
White Village: http://www.flickr.com/photos/97422460@N08/sets/72157634209606993/