Last Saturday my program took a trip to a village outside of Beijing called Xinzhuang Village, which is known for its commitment to more sustainable living. The village was about an hour drive outside of Beijing; on the way we passed by crop fields and mountains in the distance. When we arrived at the village we had the opportunity to go to a local home where we conversed with the owner for about an hour and learned about his daily life, as well as the village’s initiatives for protecting the environment. We learned how this village specializes in growing strawberries, which our host offered to us to taste.
BEST STRAWBERRY OF ALL TIME
This strawberry was allegedly grown without interference of genetic engineering, making it much smaller in size however incredibly sweet and juicy. It truly blew me away.
In fact the visit overall was very surprising to me and pretty much nothing like how I thought it would be. The streets were clean but deserted. Overall it was much more developed than I thought it would be; I was picturing a more rural setting with grass and dirt. In addition, while our host spoke PuTongHua, which is the standard version of Mandarin I study, his Beijing accent was so thick that he was hard to understand. It was a very interesting day trip and definitely made me more curious about exploring parts of China outside of the big cities.
