Our first
stop on Monday morning was Miss Gao's farm, though the farm is basically still
in the city of Xi'an. She farms 4 mu, 2/3 of an acre, of wheat and corn. The
wheat is a winter variety that is grown for 10 months and harvested in June.
Corn is planted immediately after the wheat harvest and is ready to be
hand-picked in September. Miss Gao also has a small cherry-growing business.
They reminded us all of Bing cherries from home. Before any cherries can be
harvested, the trees must grow for five years. When the trees are young, she
attaches a weighted bag to the branches to force them to grow outward so a
greater cherry harvest can be sold.
Miss Gao plants everything by
hand. She uses her experience to judge how far apart the rows and individual
plants are from each other. The rows were impressively straight. Even the
planting depth is done by Miss Gao's own judgment. To irrigate, she digs
shallow canals in between each row and carries buckets of water from their well
to fill the canals. They water every fifteen days.
Because Miss Gao's family works
in Xi'an, she does all of this farm work by herself. She hand-pulls all of the
weeds and harvests everything by hand as well. The only aspect of her operation
she contracts out is the spraying of insecticides.
Our second stop on the lovely,
seventy-four degree Monday was the Terra Cotta Warriors museum. The clay the
warriors are made from is called terra cotta clay, hence the name. The clay
army is 7,000 strong, though only 2,000 are viewable to visitors. Unknown to
most, when the army was first discovered, they were painted with intricate
detail, but nearly all unearthed artifacts lost their color from being exposed
to sunlight and fresh air. Horses and chariots were also made into pottery
along with the warriors.
The army was made over 2,000
years ago by order of Emperor Qin of the Qin Dynasty. He was known as a cruel
leader, forcing 700,000 people to make the clay warriors. Emperor Qin is buried
a few kilometers from his army, who are buried at the base of Lishan Mountain,
just outside of Xi'an. The reason for their creation is due to the beliefs of
Taoism, which was predominant at the time. Emperor Qin believed the army would
accompany and protect him in the afterlife. Each sculpted face is said to
represent someone from Qin's real army.
Our last stop of the day was at
Yinqiao Dairy Group, a thirty-eight year old dairy manufacturing company in
Xi'an. The president, Mr. Liu, and several other senior executives met with us
to show the success of their products and answers any questions we had. Moving
forward, Yinqiao Dairy Group wants to increase the diversity of flavors of
their milk & yogurt products and make milk a more popular choice of
beverage in China. Mr. Liu hopes to continue and expand relationships with the
United States, as well as SDSU specifically because of our outstanding College
of Ag & Bio. We were also able to tour their production facility, which
uses U.S. packaging equipment.
The evening was open for us to
get foot massages, do some shopping, and explore the magnificence of Xi'an.
This was definitely one of the favorite days we have had so far.
Devon Baum
& Corey Chicoine
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