Culture shock: Food stares back

Friends, family, and colleagues,

These posts titled "Culture shock" will include items that are starkly different from something we would see in the US. While I'm not necessarily shocked by them, I notice that they are very unusual compared to what we would normally see in everyday America. I hope you find these amusing and entertaining.

While the fish was delicious, some people may be put off by the head still staring back at them.

One thing I have noticed during our meals is that some of the usually have the head and the eyes still attached. It’s a minor adjustment, but the first time is a bit surprising. This goes beyond the fish in the picture, it’s not uncommon to be served a whole chicken including the head and beak. Shrimp is often served whole as well.

I will eventually do a post covering the etiquette and some of the more appetizing dishes. But for now, I'll leave you with the staring fish dish.

Mason

The great firewall; limited connectivity

Friends family and colleagues,

I wanted to get a quick post out to let everyone know that I’m now moved into the institute dorm and contact will be limited. Currently, there is no internet available in the dorm. Additionally, the firewalls at the institute are much more stringent than they were in the hotel. I have to connect to a physical network, which renders the VPN useless. Sites that I've found to be blocked include: all things google (though Dr. Yao did say that google scholar was allowed), Facebook, and all UF websites. That includes my email. Normally, I would just use my old Cornell email (but that’s powered by google as well). My blog is also blocked. It appears that Skype still works, as well as Whatsapp on my phone. One solution is to go across the street to the forest mall where they have decent WiFi. I had the chance to talk to Myriam last night, which was nice.

I have a local sim card which allows me to make phone calls and texts to people in China. This makes it useful for contacting my boss here if there is something I need. The mobile network doesn’t seem to be working properly, which I’ve found is a common problem with American phones in China. So I’m paying for a gig of data that I won’t use. It’s just like Verizon.

WiFi here is spotty usually. There are a lot of hotspots, but most of them are secured (especially at the institute). The range on most of the routers is about 3-5 meters, which isn't bad if you’re right underneath one. The speed fluctuates depending on how many people are on the network. This is something I realized at the hotel. I had great speeds at 5:00 am and midnight. Generally speaking, the speed is much slower than American networks.

Regardless of the connectivity situation. I will do my best to post as often as I can. I want to thank you all for supporting me and being patient with the connectivity issues. (Especially you Myriam, I love you). 

Small world: Plant Pathology by George N. Agrios

Friends, family, and colleagues,

In this series "small world", I will attempt to bridge the massive cultural and geographic divide readers see in the "culture shock" series with facets that can be used to relate to one another. I will post similarities we share that can be used to show that even a world away, some things are still familiar to us.

First, let's go to the beginning. No, not when I was born. My parents torment me enough about my conception and stories of how much fun they had before children. We're only going back 5 years (has it really been 5 years already?!). Fall 2010, I'm a bright young student at Cornell and I'm sitting in PLPA 3010, introductory plant pathology taught by Dr. Bill Fry. He's a passionate man who loves teaching and is considered a world-renowned expert on Phytophthora infestans. One of the required texts in "Plant Pathology" by George N. Agrios. To anyone who is in this field or anyone who has taken an introductory plant pathology course, you know that this becomes like a Bible to you (especially during exam time). It's comprehensive (nearly exhaustive) and it's a great reference for anyone in the field of agriculture.

Bonus points if you can identify the pathogen on the cover

After graduation, I spent a few years working at various institutions including University of Delaware and the University of Maryland. I know several of my colleagues had it on their shelf for reference. I remember referring to this same book for reference. Fast forward to two years ago (have I seriously been in graduate school for two years?!), that book still lives on my office shelf and has been an important citation in my literature review. Interesting fact, Dr. Agrios was a professor at UF and started the plant medicine program, which has connected me with so many wonderful people that I would otherwise never interact with (yes, even though I give certain DPM students crap, they're still wonderful).

During my tour of JAAS today, I was orienting myself to where everyone's office is. This will become useful for the first week of actual lab-work. I need to know where my English-speaking labmates are so I can bug them when I can't find something. I'm sitting in Dr. Ren's office chatting with him and I notice all these books on the desk behind his. He mentioned that they were Dr. Yang's, and since he's now moved into an administrative position, he hasn't had a chance to clean them out.

One book catches my eye. Not because I can read the name in Chinese, but rather the English title.

The Gator nation really is everywhere.

Mason

Culture shock: how do I use it?

Friends, family, and colleagues, 

These posts titled "Culture shock" will include items that are starkly different from something we would see in the US. While I'm not necessarily shocked by them, I notice that they are very unusual compared to what we would normally see in everyday America. I hope you find these amusing and entertaining.

A few nights ago, Dr. Paret went to ask the front desk for an iron, and with a couple hand gestures, we both realized we are terrible at the game "charades":. I whipped out my mandarin phrasebook and pointed to the word for "iron". 10 minutes later, one of the attendants arrives with this item.

He stared at it for a second and asked "how do I use it?" She calmly demonstrated how you iron a shirt with it. Once he knew, it made a bit more sense. Neither he nor I had ever seen an iron like this one. Water goes in the bottom unit where it is heated and soon steam begins pouring out of the hose.

In the US, we are used to a hand iron with an ironing board (which I personally cannot stand). I might have to invest in one of these to make my ironing chore a bit more bearable.

Mason

Zhejiang University and surrounding Hangzhou

Friends, family, and colleagues,

Yesterday, we drove down to Hangzhou, and we met faculty at Zhejiang University.  The region is home to about 100,000 hectares of watermelon production with about 10% being an open system. No surprise, these open systems have the most amount of disease.

We met with Dr. Song, who is a plant pathologist at Zhejiang University. The university consists of several campuses, with the largest and newest one being in the Zijin'gang campus, which we visited. The department has 37 faculty, all of which were on this campus. Most of the faculty are young professors, which is similar to the department at UF. The department is in a massive building which houses several departments. 

Dr. Song is a vegetable pathologist who focuses on gummy stem blight, Fusarium wilt, and powdery mildew. Additionally, he has research in tomatoes, rice, and some Arabidopsis work. We also met briefly with the department chair of the program, who was very welcoming. We sat and had tea with him for a while and discussed possible collaborations. Unfortunately, he had to run to another meeting right after the talk. Department chairs are busy over here just as they are in the US.

This is the building where the department of plant pathology was located. It consists of 15 floors, 3 of which are occupied by the plant pathology department.

And I though Library West was nice. 

We had a large lunch in a private room at the hotel on campus. Dr. Song insisted I try some rice wine, which is famous in the region. It had a nice burnt auburn tint to it and tasted almost like a brandy. We had food until we were sick. After lunch, we toured his lab space, which was impressive. His main lab was 100 square meters, which is 2.5 times larger than our molecular lab at the University of Florida. He has seven students in total, which is considered small by Chinese standards. In addition to the laboratory, his lab team had a growth chamber room which consisted of three chamber built into the wall and was used for looking at rice varieties in different stress situations. He also had another growth chamber room with housed all his tomatoes and watermelon seedlings. We met a few of his students, and discussed some of the various projects. Dr. Song was very welcoming and recommended I apply for a fellowship for young scientists at his institution once I graduate (the pay is about 200,000 RMB per year, which about the same as a post-doc in the US would get, but the cost of living is much less in China compared the US). He also invited me back to drink with him, which I didn't know how to respond. All in all, he is a very nice professor and is certainly passionate about his work.

This was the hotel where we had lunch with Dr. Song. Needless to say, it was equally as nice on the inside.

We then took a forty minute drive to the countryside to visit a grower. The farm manager invited us down and we had tea, watermelon, and muskmelon. The muskmelon was some of the sweetest melon I have ever had. I’m a bit disappointed, since this will probably ruin my impression on melons in the US entirely. The system they are using for growing melons is something that you would see at Disney’s “behind the seeds tour" with all those quirky “futuristic” growing systems. The area was under protected high tunnels connected to one another via gutters. However, once inside, there was another hoop structure covered in a net. At each side of the hoop, watermelon was planted (grafted of course) and climbed up the net. The melons would then hang down from the vines on the inside. I have never seen watermelons grown like this before. I've seen cucumbers trellised, but I would expect watermelons to be too heavy. To address this problem, they tie the melons once they are larger than a grapefruit to provide additional support. With this system, they also are able to harvest more melons in a longer season. Each plant will yield 6 melons per plant, which they keep growing for about 6 months. In the US, we aim for a 90-105 day crop with three melons per plant. We weren't able to figure out what they are doing to get those sort of yields, since the spacing is much tighter since they grow up and not out. This facility did use fungicides, though he mentioned that is was an older chemistry. It turned out to be a fungicide that has been around for 30+ years in the US, so the chances of finding fungicide resistance are good. 

There are many advantages of using this system. The first is that the fruit aren't sitting in the dirt. The second is that it saves your back; picking at eye or waist level is much easier than bending all the way over. For this system, the rotate between strawberry or Brassicas in the winter followed by watermelon or muskmelon in the spring.

This is one of the most unique growing systems I've ever seen

The inner structure itself was about 8 feet in height. They intercrop with Brassicas to make use of the open space inside. 

Dr. Paret was all excited that we found Fusarium oxysporum f.sp. melonis in another greeenhouse.

After we left the facility, we had a “light” dinner (only seven dishes instead of the usual 250+) and we retired for the night. We made plans to take the lab out to an “American” restaurant the last night Dr. Paret is here. I’m curious to see how this turns out since none of them have been to the US. 

Tomorrow, we are going to Dongtai, which is the southern-most area of Jiangsu. We are meeting with some provincial level officials about watermelon production in the area. They’re the equivalent of the state level regulatory agency (think DPI in Florida). 

I'll stop traveling soon and start to get some work done, I promise.

Mason

Culture Shock: The Squat-Pot

Friends, family, and colleagues, 

These posts titled "Culture shock" will include items that are starkly different from something we would see in the US. While I'm not necessarily shocked by them, I notice that they are very unusual compared to what we would normally see in everyday America. I hope you find these amusing and entertaining.

So, we were in this small village near Hengxi, and I went to use some guy's bathroom and I opened the door to find this. My first thought was, "huh that's a strange urinal". Then I noticed up top, that it had the same dual-flush function as the hotel toilet. It slowly dawned on me that this wasn't just a urinal. I guess you just kind of squat if you have to use it the other way? Needless to say, I wasn't feeling THAT adventurous. 

Mason

Little melons in big China

Friends, family, and colleagues,

On Sunday, we had the chance to tour the facility at JAAS. The facility is located in the heart of Nanjing, China. The entire facility employs about 2300 people, 500 of which are scientists with 1400 support staff and the remainder being administration. Within the Academy, we are stationed in the Institute of Vegetable Crops (IVC). Within the institute, we are working with the Cucurbit breeding research group. Cucurbits include any species found in the family "Cucurbitaceae". Some famous family members include the watermelon, pumpkin, cantaloupe, muskmelon, gourd, squash, luffa, and of course, cucumber. The research group includes 7 lab members, 5 of which are scientists. Their major crops are watermelon (西瓜) and muskmelon (甜瓜). Their objectives include breeding for resistance to gummy stem blight (my pathogen), Fusarium wilt, and powdery mildew. They also seek to preserve the high quality of flavor within each new variety.

Dr. Paret and Dr. Li are looking at a resistance screening for gummy stem blight on muskmelon.

Dr. Paret (left) and Dr. Li (right) discussing all the work they are going to make me do while I'm over here.

Yesterday, we had the chance to visit Henxi, a major watermelon production area in the province. The area produces around 1300 hectares or about 3200 acres in American measurements. The area was about 90 minutes drive from the research center. We met up with some extension agents in the area and walked through one guy's operation. The crazy thing is that he rotates with Barley and Rice, so each one of those houses is taken down every year.

Watermelon production in Hengxi

One interesting note about watermelon production in China is that most fresh market production is grown under "protected agriculture". That is, they are grown in hoop houses. This is important since it prevents rain from splashing on the plants. You may not think that is a big deal, but since the pathogen I work on is spread through splashing, removing that factor significantly reduces the spread of disease. As a result, the amount of fungicides used is much lower than would be used in an open system. This system is not without drawbacks. In order to get any fruit early in the season, you need pollenation. If your whole production is a semi-closed system, you can't exactly get bees in (Not to mention a closed house full of bees seems like something out of a horror movie). Most regular season growers will use bees to pollinate, but early plantings are always pollinated by hand.

Skeleton structure of the protective structure

Dr. Paret and one of the extension agents

Contrast that with the United States, where watermelon production is in an open system. Plants are usually planted with a mechanical transplanter, pollinated by bees, sprayed weekly, and only handled by human hands at harvest. The yields are similar, about 3 fruit per plant. However, the vines are rarely trained in this system, rather, they are allowed to grow beyond the plastic mulch, which creates a thick canopy, allowing for weed control.

The major factor between an intensive operation like China and an efficient one like the US is labor. In the US, even migrant labor is expensive compared to Chinese labor. The costs to erect a structure, train the vines, potentially pollinate, then harvest would be too great for an American system. This is part of the reason why we have these issues to deal with in the US.

Tomorrow, we're visiting Zhejiang University to meet with another plant pathology department. I will keep you all posted!

Mason