Sunday, August 31, 2014

Chinese Farmers Can Grow Gourds into Virtually Any Shape

Ni Hao! How's it going, eh? Thanks for clicking by today. Ready for a mug of Chinese tea...well, okay, coffee then...and a virtual treat? Of course you are. You'd have to be out of your gourd not to, huh? Speaking of gourds...

We'll save the Looking at the detailed sculptures in the photos below, You’d be tempted to think they are made of wax, but believe it or not, they’re actually gourds! Enterprising Chinese farmers are able to grow these veggies into any shape they want. 

The most popular one is Chairman Mao, but there are many others as well – Buddha, Jesus, Santa Claus, babies, old men, monks, dragons, and pretty much anything else that attracts people’s attention.

You might think there’s some complex bioengineering or agricultural science going on behind these gourd-sculptures, but in reality, they’re just grown in simple plastic molds. 

It all started when a man named Xie Lyu Zhi visited the Thousand Year Temple in Sichuan Province. He claims that during the visit, a Buddhist monk told him about a dream he had about a gourd shaped like a deity.

Now, for me, I would have thought that rock and movie stars would be big hits...especially if you want to get the younger generation interested in maintaining the family farm.  But then, what do I know about Chinese farming, eh? 

Better yet, go into the business of selling plastic molds to farmers. On second thought, farmers don't have much money so they'd probably want to trade gourds for your molds...so you'd end up with a truckload of gourds which you could then take to the market. Aha! Now we're getting nowhere!

See ya, eh!

Bob

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