Living and working in China provides wonderful opportunities to study informally the way that the Chinese people live and work. It has been an extra ordinary experience that I will treasure for the rest of my life. Every day there are so many new things to learn, most of which will remain, what I call "another of the mysteries of China." This is in part because Chinese people don't seem to be curious about things. They accept things as they are and most don't ask questions. If it is not on "their" radar screen, it is of no interest to them. And so when I ask students about fruits (or other things for that matter) I often get a blank look. Why am I interested? What can they tell me about fruit? Fruit is fruit.

In the cities and the suburbs there are many street stalls selling so many varieties of foods - many fruit and vegetables, and "ready-to-eat" foods. Of course there are vendors trying to sell all sorts of things too - there are so many concessions (small shops) and street traders. Even people with fruit in baskets dangling from a pole across their shoulders ply the city streets selling their produce. Trucks park at interesections as the sun goes down each day, the tray of the truck piled high with the latest in season fruit or vegetables.

At the moment trucks are side by side, heavily laden with large and small watermelon.

Often I will ask a student for the English name of a fruit, or to describe it to me. How do I eat it? Do I cook it? What does it taste like? etc. Often I buy and try, but without directions I wonder if there is a better way to eat it.

Recently little plum like fruit with uneven "skin" have appeared. The students call them yangmei (youngmay). Delicious they say. But I've learned that often what the Chinese people call delicious does not thrill my taste buds.

My first taste of yangme, which are called bayberry in English, was on Friday night at a Chinese banquet. On the table were yangmei steeped in Shaoxing wine, the local rice wine delicacy. The taste was good, but the alcohol almost took one's breath away!

As it turned out the following day on one of our cultural excursions we were taken to a "Bayberry Farm" just outside Shangyu, north of Shaoxing, south China.

South China is experiencing it's regular wet season, so we were lucky it was not raining when we arrived at the farm, as we had to walk along the narrow raised beds between rice paddies, and vegetable patches, and climb for a short distance up hill to the yangmei trees that seemed to be in a little valley.

Family members were busy picking the fruit, somewhat suspicious of the foreigners that had come to view their part of the world. This would definitely not be on any regular tourist route.

We were invited to eat the fruit, of which there were several varieties with different flavours. We watched them picking the fruit - they had to climb ladders to get the fruit higher up in the trees.

When we returned to the bus, we were asked to wait a while. This often amuses us - as we think they just like looking at us, as the Chinese often ask us to "wait a while" and often we never know the reason.

On this occasion though, it was to give them time to give us a gift. Each of us received a wonderful gift of yangmei, packed in a basket with fern to protect the fruit.

Anyone for yangmei?