Profile: Yang Xiaoyang, the fruit hunter

0 Comment(s)Print E-mail Xinhua, September 20, 2019
Adjust font size:

By Xinhua writers Ma Yujie, Zhao Jiasong

BEIJING, Sept. 20 (Xinhua) -- Deftly stuffing his knapsack with outdoor jackets, mosquito repellant, specimen holders, a caliper, saccharimeter and black cloth, Yang Xiaoyang wraps up his tools, as he has done thousands of times, for his next destination. His target this time is the representative fruits of the schisandraceae family in Yunnan, southwestern China's border province.

Yang is a "fruit hunter," an occupation most people have never heard of. The 31-year-old spends most of his time shuttling between rainforests hunting mysterious wild fruits. He has tasted more than 600 types of fruits.

Born in the countryside of northern China's Henan Province, he now lives in Singapore, the "Garden City" which plant enthusiasts deem as a paradise.

Yang spends an annual average of 500,000 yuan (about 70,460 U.S. dollars) flying around looking for rare fruits. Iridescent durians, kepel fruit that is said to make people sweat and fart with a violet aroma, as well as miracle berries, whose sweetness is 3,000 times that of sugar cane -- these are among his hunting targets. He now has over 360,000 followers with posts of his adventures shared on Weibo, China's twitter-like social media platform.

"I was most impressed by Kesusu fruit," he said. "The fruit looks hard outside and doesn't look yummy at all. But when you touch it, it's as soft as a ripe fig and has the typical flavors of several fruits such as strawberry, passion fruit, mango and jackfruit," he said.

Durian, known for its fetid smell and spiky shell, is Yang's favorite fruit. So far, he has tasted over 100 types of durians. "The color of the durian flesh differs a lot. Some are golden, some are black, some have a rainbow pattern inside," he said.

Being a fruit hunter sounds cool but is often painstaking. "Sometimes it takes several trips to search for a fruit, and very often, hours of trekking in the rain forest ended with no success, as the fruit may still be unripe or has been picked up by someone else or an animal," Yang said. "But there are also surprises when you encounter a fruit that is even more attractive than what you are searching for, so every trip is an adventure full of unknowns."

Yang began sharing the plants he shot on Weibo in 2010, hoping to raise people's awareness of plants and their protection. "Sometimes I post a very rare species but only receive few responses, but as long as I share fruits, the response is much more active," Yang recalled. "My ultimate goal is to popularize the science of botany, so sharing fruits is a good way to get people interested," he said.

There are close to 400,000 plant species on the planet, and Yang has seen at least 30,000. "It even surprises me that I've seen almost 10 percent of all the living plants," he said.

In 2013, Singapore suffered from serious haze due to man-made forest fires, which were often used by people or plantation firms to clear land for new plantation on Indonesia's Sumatra island.

The once-sunbathed garden city was suddenly suffocated by dark smoke and a choking burning smell. The agonizing situation finally convinced Yang to quit his job as a precise instrument engineer and devote himself to plant conservation.

"It's such a pity that once a species dies out, its flavor and aroma can never be artificially copied," Yang told Xinhua, adding that he wished people could raise awareness to protect these endangered plants and fruits from extinction.

Last year, he selected 37 from more than 500 types of fruits he recorded and published his first book, hoping that more people can get interested in botany through rare fruits.

"This might sound inconceivable but a very good way to protect a fruit is to industrialize them," said Yang. "Avocados were endemic to a small specific region but have now been planted in a much larger scale. This is how we protect them -- make them useful to humans," he said.

"We should also protect the genetic diversity of a species. Take apples for example, the apples we usually eat all come from a single gene, but if we want to conserve the species, we should be able to produce various kinds of apples. Only by maintaining its genetic diversity can we better protect it," said Yang.

Yang is also working with the Chinese Field Herbarium, affiliated to the Chinese Academy of Sciences, on naming of Southeast Asian plants. So far, he has given over 2,000 plants their Chinese names.

In the meantime, Yang is busy making public speeches and giving lectures on plant conservation, participating in filming fruit documentaries, as well as posting short videos on social media platforms to speak up for the plants.

His efforts are paying off. "The most frequent comment I received on Weibo in the old days was 'Is it yummy?' But now, when I post a fruit, my fans will give their answer to the possible family it belongs to. They've already had awareness of plant classification, which shows that what I'm doing really counts," Yang said. Enditem

Print E-mail Bookmark and Share

Go to Forum >>0 Comment(s)

No comments.

Add your comments...

  • User Name Required
  • Your Comment
  • Enter the words you see:   
    Racist, abusive and off-topic comments may be removed by the moderator.
Send your storiesGet more from China.org.cnMobileRSSNewsletter