Farming: A new lifestyle for urban dwellers

These days, many young people have taken up urban farming as a new way of life. Balancing work during the weekdays with farming on the weekends, they find solace and healing through cultivation.

In March of this year, Hou Shan, a teacher born in the 1990s, and her boyfriend planted cucumber, corn, and beans in a plot of land on the outskirts of Guiyang city, southwest China’s Guizhou province. During the week, they work in Guiyang, but on weekends, they drive 50 kilometers to tend to their garden and then drive back.

“Farming is addictive because you know that after all the hard work, there will be a harvest,” said Hou, who finds particular joy in watching the rapid growth of corn. Each weekend, she notices how much taller the corn has grown, giving her a sense of accomplishment.

In Beijing’s Haidian district, Liu Jing rents a 16-square-meter plot and often takes a taxi to tend to her vegetables during her free time.

She’s amazed by the vitality of plants. “Cucumbers grow incredibly fast!” Within just over a month, she harvested cucumbers she had grown herself. Liu said that farming brings a unique kind of peace, offering a quiet rural life and a sense of being rewarded. She believes that farming has a therapeutic effect on the stresses of urban life for young people.

For many, farming has become a spiritual outlet.

Living and working far from home, Hou Shan feels that the land connects her more deeply with her roots.

On a visit home to Guangdong, her parents packed her a box of local specialties, including cassava, taro, and a special type of sweet potato from her hometown.

The box, filled to the brim, weighed over ten kilograms. Hou Shan brought these hometown flavors back to Guiyang, ate some, and planted the rest. While waiting for the harvest, she felt as if a piece of her hometown were close by.

Source: China Youth Daily; trans-editing by Guo Yao